On the unprofitability of buyer groups when sellers compete

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jeon, Doh-Shin; Menicucci, Domenico
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics; University of Florence
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2019.03.008
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 265-288
• 关键词: Buyer group; Buyer power; Competition in nonlinear tariffs; Discriminatory offers; common agency

摘要

We study how the formation of a buyer group affects buyer power when sellers compete and buyers operate in separate markets. Previous research (Inderst and Shaffer, 2007, and Dana, 2012) has considered a buyer group that can commit to an exclusive purchase and has found that the formation of a buyer group strictly increases buyer power unless buyers have identical preferences. In contrast, we assume that no commitment to exclusive purchases is possible. We find that the formation of a buyer group has no effect if each seller's cost function is concave. If it is strictly convex, the buyer group strictly reduces the buyers' total payoff as long as the Pareto-dominant equilibrium for sellers is played when a buyer group is formed. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.