Begin: Thu, 18. of Jul 2013 ( 1:00 PM)
Location: Warburger Str. 100, Room C3.212
On July 18, 2013, Prof. Cheng-Zhong Qin will give a talk in the context of the SFB 901 colloquium. Title of the talk: Price and Shortage as Signals of Quality.
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the role of seller-induced shortage as a signal of quality for a monopoly firm. Unlike dissipative advertising, the cost of inducing shortage is different for different quality types. It is shown that under certain conditions, a high-quality monopoly firm (of a new indivisible product) that signals quality by properly setting price and inducing shortage makes more prot than using price and dissipative advertising. The result provides a rationale for why high quality product monopolies may prefer to initially limit supply with or without lowering the price.