Concorrência em Oligopólios Mistos com Diferenciação Horizontal e Vertical do Produto

Description

This essay approaches the competition in mixed oligopoly markets with product differentiation. An oligopoly is characterized by the existence of few players and many consumers. It is considered as a mixed oligopoly when there both private and public companies operating. This essay aims to characterize the decisions made by both public and private companies, namely regarding price in a context of horizontal and vertical product differentiation. The objective is to add to the existing literature helping to understand how mixed markets work and possible concurrency policies. It is concluded that the more importance public companies attribute to private companies profits the more they increase price. This does not apply to public firm’s complementary goods prices. The price practiced by the private company presents higher values whenever products are complementary and differentiated vertically and the one of the private company has superior quality to the one of the public. The price practiced by the public company is maximum when there is vertical differentiation and there is no horizontal differentiation, where the goods are complementary and in cases where the goods of the private company have higher quality than the public. Well-being is maximum when there is only vertical differentiation and the good of the public firm has inferior quality to the private one. On the other hand, the best scenario for the consumer’s is where products are differentiated horizontally and vertically, and the public enterprise produces a good of inferior quality.

Period	Sept 2017 → 13 Dec 2018
Held at	University of Porto, Portugal
Degree of Recognition	Master