Vertical integration and product differentiation

Arijit Mukherjee and Piercarlo Zanchettin

No 12/17, Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester

Abstract: We study horizontal product differentiation as a strategic decision of downstream firms facing a threat of vertical integration and market foreclosure by an upstream monopolist. We model product differentiation either as pure market segmentation or as generating positive value to consumers. Because of the threat of vertical integration, the downstream firms prefer more differentiation when the latter merely yields the anticompetitive effects of market segmentation, while they may prefer less differentiation when the latter would generate additional social value. Therefore, instead of market foreclosure, we indicate market segmentation or under-investment in socially valuable activities, such as product innovation, design, and informative advertising, as possible social costs of a lenient antitrust policy towards vertical mergers.

Keywords: Vertical integration; product differentiation; market foreclosure; market segmentation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 L13 L42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-04, Revised 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.le.ac.uk/economics/research/RePEc/lec/leecon/dp12-17.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Vertical integration and product differentiation (2017)
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:lec:leecon:12/17

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www2.le.ac.u ... -1/discussion-papers

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester School of Business, University of Leicester, University Road. Leicester. LE1 7RH. UK Provider-Homepage: https://le.ac.uk/school-of-business. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Abbie Sleath ().