Optimal choice of product scope for multiproduct firms under monopolistic competition
By: Robert Feenstra, Hong Ma.
Contributors: Ma, Hong.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13703; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 13703.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "In this paper we develop a monopolistic competition model where firms exercise their market power across multiple products.  Even with CES preferences, markups are endogenous.  Firms choose their optimal product scope by balancing the net profits from a new variety against the costs of "cannibalizing" their own sales.  With identical costs across firms, opening trade leads to fewer firms surviving in each country but more varieties produced by each of those firms.  With heterogeneous costs, the number of firms surviving in equilibrium is quite insensitive to the market size.  When trade is opened, more firms initially enter, but the larger market size reduces the cannibalization effect and expands the optimal scope of products.  As a result, the less efficient firms exit, and the larger market is accommodated by more efficient firms that produce more varieties per firm on average"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/6/2008.

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