Temporary boycotts as self-fulfilling disruptions of markets

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Peck, James
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2017.01.005
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1-12
• 关键词: Boycott; Sunspot; monopoly; Demand uncertainty

摘要

This paper demonstrates how equilibrium involving anticipated boycotts and actual boycotts can occur, even though consumers are negligible and only care about the price they pay and the timing of purchase. The model is a two-period durable goods monopoly game with demand uncertainty. First, a non-boycott equilibrium is characterized. Under regularity assumptions ruling out multiplicative uncertainty, there are additional equilibria in which the firm sets a low price in period 0, based on the anticipation that consumers will boycott whenever the price exceeds a threshold. Also, the augmented game, with a publicly observed sunspot, has equilibria in which boycotts occur on the equilibrium path with positive probability. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.