Equilibrium price dispersion with heterogeneous searchers (2009)
Firms simultaneously set prices in a homogeneous-product market where uninformed consumers search for price information. Some uninformed consumers are local searchers who visit only one seller,...
Equilibrium price dispersion with heterogeneous searchers (2009)
Firms simultaneously set prices in a homogeneous-product market where uninformed consumers search for price information. Some uninformed consumers are local searchers who visit only one seller,...
Inattentive Consumers and Product Quality (2007)
Armstrong, Mark, Chen, Yongmin
This paper studies a model in which some consumers shop on the basis of price alone, without attention to potential differences in product quality. A firm may offer a low-quality product to exploit...
Price-increasing competition (2006)
Chen, Yongmin, Riordan, Michael H.
In a discrete choice model of product differentiation, the symmetric duopoly price may be lower than, equal to, or higher than the single-product monopoly price. While the market share effect of...
Price-increasing competition (2006)
Chen, Yongmin, Riordan, Michael H.
In a discrete choice model of product differentiation, the symmetric duopoly price may be lower than, equal to, or higher than the single-product monopoly price. While the market share effect of...
Price and variety in the spokes model (2005)
Chen, Yongmin, Riordan , Michael H.
The spokes model of nonlocalized spatial competition provides a new analytical tool for differentiated oligopoly and a representation of spatial monopolistic competition. At the unique symmetric...
Price and variety in the spokes model (2005)
Chen, Yongmin, Riordan, Michael H.
The spokes model of nonlocalized spatial competition provides a new analytical tool for differentiated oligopoly and a representation of spatial monopolistic competition. At the unique symmetric...
Vertical integration, exclusive dealing, and ex post cartelization (2003)
Chen, Yongmin, Riordan, Michael H.
A vertically integrated firm has the incentive and ability to use exclusive contracts to foreclose an equally efficient upstream competitor and to effect a cartelization of the downstream industry....
Vertical integration, exclusive dealing, and ex post cartelization (2003)
Chen, Yongmin, Riordan, Michael H.
A vertically integrated firm has the incentive and ability to use exclusive contracts to foreclose an equally efficient upstream competitor and to effect a cartelization of the downstream industry....
Do Economics Departments Search Optimally in Faculty Recruiting?* (2003)
grant #SES-9911229 and #SES-9819142 is gratefully acknowledged.
Vertical Integration, Exclusive Dealing, and Ex Post Cartelization (2002)
Yongmin Chen, Michael H. Riordan
This paper uncovers an unnoticed connection between exclusive contracts and vertical organization. The combination of vertical integration and exclusive contracts results in the exclusion of an...
Vertical Price Control and Parallel Imports (1999)
Parallel imports are genuine products brought into a country without the autho-rization of a copyright, patent, or trademark owner. Countries vary considerably in their legal treatment of parallel...
Vertical Price Control And Parallel Imports (1999)
Keith E. Maskus, Keith E Maskus, Keith E. Maskus, Yongmin Chen, Yongmin Chen, Yongmin Chen
: We overview the international policy debate concerning parallel imports, which are goods traded without the authorization of an original trademark or copyright owner. Parallel imports are likely to...
Models of business behavior : multi-market diversification and short-term orientation / (1993)
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Boston University, 1993.
Market Design with Correlated Valuations
The effects of information on market design are explored in a simple setting where firms have private information about their correlated fixed costs and the government aims to maximize its expected...
Buyer Investment, Product Variety, and Intrafirm Trade
Robert C. Feenstra, Yongmin Chen
This paper studies a simple model of buyer investment and its effect on the variety and vertical structure of international trade. A distinction is made between two types of buyer investment:...
Learning Buyers' Valuation Distribution in Posted-Price Selling
A dynamic pricing model is studied where a seller of an asset faces a sequence of potential buyers whose valuation distribution is unknown to the seller. The seller learns more about the distribution...
Price and Variety in the Spokes Model
Yongmin Chen, Michael H. Riordan
The spokes model of nonlocalised spatial competition provides a new analytical tool for differentiated oligopoly and a representation of spatial monopolistic competition. An increase in the number of...
Price and Variety in the Spokes Model
Michael H. Riordan, Yongmin Chen
The spokes model of nonlocalized spatial competition provides a new analytical tool for differentiated oligopoly and a representation of spatial monopolistic competition. At the unique symmetric...
Vertical Integration, Exclusive Dealing, and Ex Post Cartelization
Yongmin Chen, Michael H. Riordan
A vertically integrated firm has the incentive and ability to use exclusive contracts to foreclose an equally efficient upstream competitor and to effect a cartelization of the downstream industry....
Asking Prices as Commitment Devices.
Chen, Yongmin, Rosenthal, Robert W
This paper explores the implications of the hypothesis that an asking price is a ceiling to which a seller commits in order to provide incentives for potential buyers to incur search costs. Having...
Vertical price control and parallel imports - theory and evidence
Maskus, Keith E., Yongmin Chen
A policy of national exhaustion says that the rights to control distribution, end upon first sale only within a country, thereby permitting rights holders to exclude parallel imports. A policy of...
Strategic Bidding by Potential Competitors: Will Monopoly Persist?
Who will win the bidding to become the sole producer of a new product: the monopolist of a related product or a new entrant? When there exists potential entry to the monopolist's existing business,...
"This paper provides an economic analysis of marketing innovation. A dynamic duopoly model is developed to study two forms of marketing innovation: Gamma, which allows a firm to acquire consumer...
This paper studies the business practice of offering discounts to new customers in markets with switching costs. In a two-period homogeneous-good duopoly model, it is shown that the equilibrium...
With economies of scale, a vertically integrated firm can lower its upstream cost by supplying downstream competitors. The competitors may strategically choose not to purchase from the integrated...
Market Design with Correlated Valuations
The effects of information on market design are explored in a simple setting where firms have private information about their correlated fixed costs and the government aims to maximize its expected...
Vertical Price Control and Parallel Imports: Theory and Evidence
The paper analyzes parallel imports, or goods traded without the authorization of a trademark owner. Parallel imports have multiple causes, including vertical price control, which the authors model....
On Vertical Mergers and Their Competitive Effects
It is well known that vertical integration can change an upstream producer's incentive to supply the integrated firm's downstream rivals. However, it has not been noticed that vertical integration...
On Vertical Mergers and Their Competitive Effects.
It is well known that vertical integration cats change the pricing incentive of an upstream producer. However, it has not been noticed that vertical integration may also change the pricing incentive...
Oligopoly Price Discrimination and Resale Price Maintenance
Oligopoly price discrimination in the retail market prevents a manufacturer from inducing optimal retail margins through any wholesale price. This motivates the manufacturer to impose resale price...
Multidimensional Signalling and Diversification
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...
On the Use of Ceiling-Price Commitments by Monopolists
Yongmin Chen, Robert W. Rosenthal
The establishment of an asking, or ceiling, price from which reductions can be bargained is a common selling practice. For a monopolist seller of a single object, this article characterizes the best...
Vertical Pricing and Parallel Imports
We generalize an earlier model of international vertical pricing to explain key features of parallel imports, or unauthorized trade in legitimate goods. When a manufacturer (or trademark owner) sells...
Promises, Trust, and Contracts.
A transaction involving a buyer and a competitive seller is studied under the hypothesis that individuals may have a certain tendency to keep promises. The parties can choose a complete contract...
research articles : Learning buyers' valuation distribution in posted-price selling
A dynamic pricing model is studied where a seller of an asset faces a sequence of potential buyers whose valuation distribution is unknown to the seller. The seller learns more about the distribution...
Ownership, location and prices in chinese electronic commerce markets
Zhao, Dongmei, Savage, Scott J., Chen, Yongmin
This study examines the pricing behavior of online retailers (e-tailers) in Chinese e-commerce markets. Descriptive statistics indicate that prices have not converged in China's e-commerce markets...
Paid Placement: Advertising and Search on the Internet
Paid placement, where advertisers bid payments to a search engine to have their products appear next to keyword search results, has emerged as a predominant form of advertising on the Internet. This...
The Effects Of Competition On The Price For Cable Modem Internet Access
An important issue in economics is how market structure affects prices. While the standard view is that competition lowers prices, Chen and Riordan (2006) argued that with product differentiation it...
This article offers an equilibrium theory of product bundling by rival firms. In several models where a primary good is produced in a duopoly market and one or more other goods is produced under...
Inattentive Consumers and Product Quality
Armstrong, Mark, Chen, Yongmin
This paper studies a model in which some consumers shop on the basis of price alone, without attention to potential differences in product quality. A firm may offer a low-quality product to exploit...
Trade Liberalization and Strategic Outsourcing
Yongmin Chen, Jota Ishikawa, Zhihao Yu
This paper develops a model of strategic outsourcing. With trade liberalization in the intermediate-product market, a domestic firm may choose to purchase a key intermediate good from a more...
Physical Capital, Knowledge Capital and the Choice Between FDI and Outsourcing
Yongmin Chen, Ignatius J. Horstmann, James R. Markusen
There exist two approaches in the literature concerning the multinational firm's mode choice for foreign production between an owned subsidiary and a licensing contract. One approach considers...
Buyer investment, export variety, and intrafirm trade
Chen, Yongmin, Feenstra, Robert C.
This paper studies a model of buyer investment and its effect on the variety and vertical structure of international trade. A distinction is made between two types of buyer investment: "Flexible" and...
DYNAMIC PRICE DISCRIMINATION WITH ASYMMETRIC FIRMS -super-*
This paper considers variants of a dynamic duopoly model where one firm has a stronger market position than its competitor. Consumers' past purchases may reveal their different valuations for the two...
Yongmin Chen, Michael H. Riordan
In a discrete choice model of product differentiation, the symmetric duopoly price may be lower than, equal to, or higher than the single-product monopoly price. Whereas the market share effect...
Physical Capital, Knowledge Capital and the Choice Between FDI and Outsourcing
Chen, Yongmin, Horstmann, Ignatius J, Markusen, James R.
There exist two approaches in the literature concerning the multinational firm's mode choice for foreign production between an owned subsidiary and a licensing contract. One approach considers...
Inattentive Consumers and Product Quality
We present a model in which some consumers shop on the basis of price alone, without paying attention to product quality. A firm may "cheat" and offer a worthless product to exploit these inattentive...
Trade Liberalization and Strategic Outsourcing
Chen, Yongmin, Ishikawa, Jota, Yu, Zhihao
This paper develops a theory of strategic outsourcing that arises due to trade liberalization. With trade liberalization, a domestic firm may choose to purchase the intermediate good from a more...
Designing input prices to motivate process innovation
Chen, Yongmin, Sappington, David E.M.
We examine the optimal design of regulated input prices, accounting explicitly for their impact on incentives for process innovation. Optimal input prices are shown to vary both with the prevailing...
Equilibrium price dispersion with heterogeneous searchers
Firms simultaneously set prices in a homogeneous-product market where uninformed consumers search for price information. Some uninformed consumers are local searchers who visit only one seller,...
Preferences and Equilibrium in Monopoly and Duopoly
Yongmin Chen, Michael H. Riordan
This paper takes the new approach of using a copula to characterize consumer preferences in a discrete choice model of product differentiation, and applies it to the economics of monopoly and...