Multidimensional Signalling and Diversification

Yongmin Chen

RAND Journal of Economics, 1997, vol. 28, issue 1, 168-187

Abstract: This article offers a new explanation of why firms diversify. I present a model in which a firm has private information about both its own cost and the demand function of the market on which it competes with another firm. I show that diversification can be used by the informed firm to signal private information in order to obtain competitive advantages. This provides an important motive for a firm to diversify. The signalling explanation of diversification is consistent with some empirical observations. A phenomenon called natural signalling is also studied in the model where both signals and private information are multidimensional.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%2819972 ... O%3B2-Z&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rje:randje:v:28:y:1997:i:spring:p:168-187

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://editorialexp ... i-bin/rje_online.cgi

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in RAND Journal of Economics from The RAND Corporation
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().