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Resale Price Maintenance with Secret Contracts and Retail Service Externalities
Tommy Staahl Gabrielsen and Bjørn Olav Johansen
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. Feb 2017, Vol. 9, No. 1: Pages 63-87

Resale Price Maintenance with Secret Contracts and Retail Service Externalities

Tommy Staahl Gabrielsen1 and Bjørn Olav Johansen2

1Department of Economics, University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7802, N-5007 Bergen (e-mail: )

2Department of Economics, University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7802, N-5007 Bergen (e-mail: )

We analyze a setting where a monopolist sells through retailers that set prices and provide valuable but non-contractible services to customers. We assume that contracts are private. We find that purely bilateral price restraints have no effect on the equilibrium outcome and that the standard Bertrand prices and service levels prevail. We also show that if manufacturers can commit to industry-wide resale prices, they can obtain higher prices and service levels but will generally not be able to achieve the fully integrated outcome. Using a specific linear demand system, we find that industry-wide price floors are harmful to consumers. (JEL L12, L42, L81, L60, D42, D86, D62)