Logo
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

The role of networks in firms’ multi-characteristics competition and market-share inequality

Lapatinas, Athanasios and Garas, Antonios (2016): The role of networks in firms’ multi-characteristics competition and market-share inequality.

Warning
There is a more recent version of this item available.
[thumbnail of MPRA_paper_68959.pdf]
Preview
PDF
MPRA_paper_68959.pdf

Download (955kB) | Preview

Abstract

We develop a location analysis spatial model of firms’ competition in multi-characteristics space, where consumers’ opinions about the firms’ products are distributed on multilayered networks. Firms do not compete on price but only on location upon the products’ multi-characteristics space, and they aim to attract the maximum number of consumers. Boundedly rational consumers have distinct ideal points/tastes over the possible available firm locations but, crucially, they are affected by the opinions of their neighbors. Our central argument is that the consolidation of a dense underlying consumers’ opinion network is the key for the firm to enlarge its market-share. Proposing a dynamic agent-based analysis on firms’ location choice we characterize multi-dimensional product differentiation competition as adaptive learning by firms’ managers and we argue that such a complex systems approach advances the analysis in alternative ways, beyond game-theoretic calculations.

Available Versions of this Item

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact us: mpra@ub.uni-muenchen.de

This repository has been built using EPrints software.

MPRA is a RePEc service hosted by Logo of the University Library LMU Munich.