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All-pay competition with captive consumers

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  • Foucart, Renaud
  • Friedrichsen, Jana

Abstract

We study a game in which two firms compete in quality to serve a market consisting of consumers with different initial consideration sets. If both firms invest below a certain threshold, they only compete for those consumers already aware of their existence. Above this threshold, a firm is visible to all and the highest investment attracts all consumers. On the one hand, the existence of initially captive consumers introduces an anti-competitive element: holding fixed the behavior of its rival, a firm with a larger captive segment enjoys a higher payoff from not investing at all. On the other hand, the fact that a firm’s initially captive consumers can still be attracted by very high quality introduces a pro-competitive element: a high investment becomes more profitable for the underdog when the captive segment of the dominant firm increases. The share of initially captive consumers therefore has a non-monotonic effect on the investment levels of both firms and on consumer surplus. We relate our findings to competition cases in digital markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Foucart, Renaud & Friedrichsen, Jana, 2021. "All-pay competition with captive consumers," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 75, pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:231768
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    consideration set; regulation; all-pay auction; endogenous prize; digital markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies

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