Discussion paper

DP9809 Heterogenous switching costs

We consider a simple two period model where consumers have different switching costs. Before the market opens, there was an incumbent who sold to all consumers. We identify the equilibrium both with Stackelberg and Bertrand competition and show how the presence of low switching cost consumers benefits the incumbent, despite the fact that it never sells to any of them.

£6.00
Citation

Crémer, J and G Biglaiser (2014), ‘DP9809 Heterogenous switching costs‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 9809. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp9809