现代产业经济学系列讲座第177期

行为经济与金融研究室系列讲座

时　间： 2019年6月14日（周五）10:00-11:30

地　点：复旦大学管理学院李达三楼104室

主　题：Reimbursing Consumers' Switching Costs in Network Industries

主讲人： Jiawei Chen 美国加州大学尔湾分校经济系 副教授

主持人：李玲芳 复旦大学管理学院产经系 副教授

摘　要：This paper investigates firms' decisions to reimburse consumers' switching costs in network industries. Prior literature finds that switching costs incentivize firms to harvest their locked-in consumers rather than price aggressively for market dominance, thereby resulting in a lower market concentration. Using a dynamic duopoly model, we show that this result is reversed if firms have the option to reimburse consumers' switching costs. In that case the larger firm reimburses a greater share of the switching cost than the smaller firm does, as an additional instrument to propel itself to market dominance. Consequently, an increase in the switching cost increases market concentration. Compared to the case without switching cost reimbursement, allowing firms the option to reimburse results in greater consumer welfare despite having a higher market concentration, as consumers are helped by larger network benefits and often lower effective prices.

主讲人简介：Jiawei Chen is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University in 2005. His research focuses on analyzing firms' dynamic competition as well as regulatory and estimation issues related to such dynamics. Specific issues that he has recently examined include product compatibility and consumer switching costs in network industries, secondary markets in durable goods industries, two-sided matching in the loan market, and strategic alliances in the nonprofit sector. He has published in academic journals such as American Economic Review, Rand Journal of Economics, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Industrial Economics, and International Journal of Industrial Organization.
 

产业经济学系 

2019-6-13