Outside options and the failure of the Coase conjecture

Simon Board, Marek Pycia
2014
A buyer wishes to purchase a good from a seller who chooses a sequence of prices over time. Each period the buyer can also exercise an outside option, abandoning their search or moving on to another seller. We show there is a unique equilibrium in which the seller charges a constant price in every period equal to the monopoly price, contravening the Coase conjecture. We then embed the singleseller model into a search framework and show the result provides a foundation for the usual "no
more » ... assumption. A buyer wishes to purchase a good from a seller who chooses a sequence of prices over time. Each period the buyer can also exercise an outside option, abandoning their search or moving on to another seller. We show there is a unique equilibrium in which the seller charges a constant price in every period equal to the monopoly price, contravening the Coase conjecture. We then embed the singleseller model into a search framework and show the result provides a foundation for the usual "no haggling" assumption. (JEL C78, D42, D43, L12, L13)
doi:10.5167/uzh-151882 fatcat:atiinm5fubhlpgytdg6m2obgyu