Maria Arbatskaya

Can low-price guarantees deter entry?

Abstract This paper examines the strategic use of low-price guarantees (LPGs) as an entry deterrent. The entire space of contemporaneous LPG messages is partitioned according to their ability to deter entry and/or increase the incumbent’s profits. While most price-matching and price-beating guarantees cannot deter entry into a perfectly contestable market, there do exist special classes of price-beating guarantees that enable the incumbent to prevent entry. Interestingly, both price-matching and price-beating can be a part of the incumbent’s strategy in subgame perfect equilibria of the game where the firms choose LPGs from 14 classes defined in the paper.

Multi-activity contests

In many contests, players can influence their chances of winning through multiple activities or “arms”. We develop a model of multi-armed contests and axiomatize its contest success function. We then analyze the outcomes of the multi-armed contest and the effects of allowing or restricting arms. Restricting an arm increases total effort directed to other arms if and only if restricting the arm balances the contest. Restricting an arm tends to reduce rent dissipation because it reduces the discriminatory power of the contest. But it also tends to increase rent dissipation if it balances the contest. Less rent is dissipated if an arm is restricted as long as no player is excessively stronger than the other with that arm. If players are sufficiently symmetric in an arm, both players are better off if that arm is restricted. Nevertheless, players cannot agree to restrict the arm if their costs of using the arm are sufficiently low.

Promises to match or beat the competition: Evidence from retail tire prices

Given the widespread adoption of low-price guarantees and discussion of their anti-competitive effects in the theoretical literature, it is unfortunate that there is little empirical evidence available on the subject. This chapter analyzes the effects of low-price guarantees on advertised tire prices, based on P185/75R14 retail tire prices collected from U.S. Sunday newspapers. We find that although a tire retailers own price-matching or price-beating guarantee has no significant effect on the retailers advertised tire price, an increase in the percentage of firms in the market announcing low-price guarantees tends to raise the firms advertised tire price. In particular, we find that the predicted tire prices are approximately

Are Prices 'Sticky' Online? Market Structure Effects and Asymmetric Responses to Cost Shocks in Online Mortgage Markets

4 higher (about 10 percent of the average advertised price of a P185/75R14 tire) in markets in which all firms advertise an LPG when compared to markets without any LPGs.

Referrals in Search Markets

We analyze daily mortgage rates posted by online lenders at the price comparison site, Microsurf. While cost shocks occurred almost daily in our sample, quoted mortgage rates are surprisingly rigid: Only 16 percent of the posted rates represent changes. However, firms that adjusted rates in response to cost shocks did so quite rapidly; about 98 percent of a cost shock was passed through within two days of the cost shock. Duration analysis reveals that the observed rigidity in rates systematically depends on market structure: Online mortgage rates are 30 to 40 percent more durable in concentrated markets than in markets where there are many competitors. We also find that rates posted online tend to exhibit downward stickiness; rate adjustments in response to cost increases are about twice the corresponding adjustments for cost decreases.

Dynamic Multi-Activity Contests

This paper compares the equilibrium outcomes in search markets with and without referrals. Although it seems clear that consumers would benefit from referrals, it is not at all clear whether firms would unilaterally provide information about competing offers since such information could encourage consumers to purchase the product elsewhere. In a model of a horizontally differentiated product and sequential consumer search, we show that valuable referrals can arise in the equilibrium: a firm will give referrals to consumers whose ideal product is sufficiently far from the firms offering. It is found that the equilibrium prices are higher in markets with referrals. Although referrals can make consumers worse off, referrals lead to a Pareto improvement as long as the search cost is not too low relative to product heterogeneity. Similar results are obtained in the presence of referral fees and in the case where firms can price-discriminate among consumers and consumers can misrepresent their tastes.

The exclusion principle for symmetric multi-prize all-pay auctions with endogenous valuations

In many contests, players can influence the outcome through efforts in multiple activities, several of which can be chosen before others. In this paper, we develop a model of dynamic multi-activity contests. Players simultaneously choose efforts in long-run activities, observe each other’s efforts in these activities, and then simultaneously choose efforts in short-run activities. A player’s long-run and short-run efforts complement each other in determining the player’s probability of winning. We compare the outcomes of this two-stage model to those of the corresponding model in which players do not observe each other’s first-stage efforts before the second stage and thus effectively choose efforts in all activities simultaneously. Interestingly, effort expenditures are always lower in the sequential multi-activity contest than in the simultaneous multi-activity contest. The implications of this result for the organization of military, litigation, innovation, academic, and sporting contests are highlighted.

The Impact of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on Competitiveness, Bribery, and Investment

Abstract This paper explains why contest designers may limit entry into a symmetric multi-prize all-pay auction. The revenue-maximizing size of the group of ‘finalists’ depends on the extent to which prize values decrease or increase with the number of contestants.

Product Liability or Warning Visibility? Managing Product Risks When Consumer Label-Reading Efforts Count

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prohibits U.S.-related firms from making bribes abroad. We analyze the FCPA’s effects in a model of competition between a U.S. and foreign firm for contracts in a host country. If the FCPA only applies to the U.S. firm, it reduces that firm’s competitiveness and either increases bribery by the foreign firm or reduces overall investment. If the FCPA also applies to foreign firms, it reduces total bribery, and in host countries with high corruption levels, it increases total investment. The model suggests that the FCPA will deter bribery and stimulate investment while not disadvantaging U.S. firms if its enforcement is aimed at firms who engaged in bribery in highly corrupt countries and whose main competitors are also subject to the FCPA.

Managing Consumer Referrals on a Chain Network

This paper examines the liability and labeling approaches to regulating product safety. Stronger product liability increases producer care, which then has a negative lulling effect on consumer attention to warning labels. By contrast, more visible warning labels increase such consumer care, which then has a positive vigilance effect on producer care. Information campaigns educating consumers about product risks generate a similar vigilance effect. This happens because consumers view producer care and consumer care levels as strategic substitutes, while the firm views them as strategic complements. We argue that when a public policy is chosen, the endogeneity of consumer attention to warnings is not to be overlooked.