Complementary Monopolies with Asymmetric Information

39 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2018 Last revised: 25 May 2019

See all articles by Didier Laussel

Didier Laussel

Aix-Marseille University; University of the Mediterranean

Joana Resende

Universidade do Porto - Faculdade de Economia (FEP)

Date Written: May 2, 2019

Abstract

We investigate how asymmetric information on final demand affects strategic interaction between a downstream monopolist and a set of upstream monopolists, who independently produce complementary inputs. We study an intrinsic private common agency game in which each supplier i independently proposes a pricing schedule contract to the assembler, specifying the supplier’s payment as a function of the assembler’s purchase of input i. We provide a necessary and sufficient equilibrium condition. A lot of equilibria satisfy this condition but there is a unique Pareto undominated Nash equilibrium from the suppliers’ point of view. In this equilibrium there are unavoidable efficiency losses due to excessively low sales of the good. However, suppliers may be able to limit these distortions by implicitly coordinating on an equilibrium with a rigid (positive) output in bad demand circumstances.

Keywords: complementary inputs, asymmetric information, private common agency games

JEL Classification: D82, L10, L14, L22

Suggested Citation

Laussel, Didier and Resende, Joana, Complementary Monopolies with Asymmetric Information (May 2, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3121668 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3121668

Didier Laussel (Contact Author)

Aix-Marseille University ( email )

3 Avenue Robert Schuman
3 Avenue Robert Schuman,
Aix-en-Provence, 13628
France

University of the Mediterranean

58 Bd Charles Livon
Marseille, 13 002
France

Joana Resende

Universidade do Porto - Faculdade de Economia (FEP) ( email )

Rua Roberto Frias
s/n
Porto, 4200-464
Portugal

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