Content and Access Provision in a Discrete Competition Model

The non-rival, non-excludable and infinitely expansible characteristics of digital goods with marginal cost of zero strongly favours the use of bundling strategies. Theoretical tractability requires most models in the current literature to make highly stylized assumptions, rarely observed or anticipated in the real-life situations, motivating inquiry. This paper considers a competition model in which: * the firms, consumers and differentiated products are finite in number; * prices are discrete and not continuous; * consumers may purchase multiple items in a single product category where the degree of complementarity or substitutability of the product categories can also vary across consumers; and * where consumer-specific cost savings are obtained when purchasing multiple items from the same firm. Approximate solutions are obtained through numerical simulation. Firms act in concert to maximise the total firm revenue. Our main finding is that the interplay between maximal firm revenue, consumer surplus and prices is very complex and that high firm revenue and high consumer surplus are not antithetic. It suggests also that consumer surplus and market concentration are not necessarily related. Many market outcomes that are observed may be due to chance rather than design as diverse outcomes can accompany situations that are, to the firms, difficult to distinguish.

CONSUMER PREFERENCES AND REGULATIONS IN CREDIT CARD MARKETS: EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY

In this paper, we analyze the demand side of the credit card market. Using unique survey data and a discrete choice model, we uncover consumer preferences for all price and nonprice features of credit cards. Our results provide evidence for an alternative explanation for the credit card pricing puzzles. We show that consumers view credit cards as highly differentiated products with both bank-level and card-level nonprice features. When selecting their credit cards, they predominantly prioritize these nonprice features over prices. Although private banks charge higher prices for their credit card services than other banks, the majority of consumers choose them as issuers due to their bank-level and card-level nonprice features. Consumers who prioritize prices tend to choose the credit cards of participation or public banks. Widespread branch/automated teller machine networks as bank-level features and installments, bonuses/rewards/miles and the prestige of the card as card-level features are particularly effective in consumers’ decisions to choose private banks as issuers. Such strong preferences for nonprice features seem to furnish private banks with market power. Hence, we argue that underlying issuers’ market power is also this differentiated nature of credit cards, for which regulatory measures are not self-evident.

Geodiversity, marketing and photographic images:

Photography is an important instrument in tourism marketing, which aims to encourage consumption and consolidate the image of a tourist destination in consumers’ minds. The elements of geodiversity with aesthetic and cultural values are commonly used as differentiated products in tourism destinations. This article discusses the relation between geodiversity, tourism marketing and the use of photographs in consolidating the image of a destination, focusing on those based in geotourism practices. The case study analyzes photographs from tourism promotion materials of the Basque Coast UNESCO Global Geopark (Spain), seeking to understand the techniques, fieldwork, symbols and narratives present therein. The methodology involves a theoretical discussion, field work and a qualitative description of the photographs with physical attributes. Geological and geomorphological features of Basque Coast are shown in photographs, highlighting a singular geoheritage that sustains environmental and cultural conservation, a principle that every geopark should construct and transmit.

A Note on the Existence of the Competitive Equilibrium in Grossman and Shapiro (1984)

In their seminal paper, Grossman, G. M., and C. Shapiro. 1984. “Informative Advertising with Differentiated Products.” The Review of Economic Studies 51: 63–81 assume that it is not profitable for a firm to deviate to the supercompetitive price of Salop, S. C. 1979. “Monopolistic Competition with outside Goods.” The Bell Journal of Economics 10: 141–56. In this note, it is shown that this assumption is violated if, roughly, each firm reaches less than half of all consumers unless it is a duopoly. This implies that most of the simulations in Grossman, G. M., and C. Shapiro. 1984. “Informative Advertising with Differentiated Products.” The Review of Economic Studies 51: 63–81 are not actually equilibria. More importantly, this implies that for their equilibrium to exist nearly all consumers must receive at least one ad. For example, with just four firms in the market, at least 96% of the consumers must receive at least one ad, and this percentage increases with the number of firms in the market.