Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/159489 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 648
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
The monopolist's incentives towards product proliferation are evaluated in an optimal control model considering three alternative regimes: profit-seeking; social planning; and a hybrid case with monopoly pricing and a regulator setting product innovation to maximise welfare. In equilibtium, the profitseeking firm supplies a socially suboptimal number of varieties to reduce cannibalisation while the social planner exploits the same effect to satisfy consumers' love for variety and decrease the market price of all products. In terms of the Schumpeter vs Arrow debate on the relationship between market structure and innovation incentives, the results obtained in this model have a definite Arrovian flavor.
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Working Paper

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