Price and Quality in a New Product Monopoly

Abstract

In a signal-extraction model of consumer behaviour, higher prices signal higher-quality products for a new product monopoly, even without cost asymmetries across different qualities. Moreover, higher-quality products earn greater expected profits, and the monopolist has an incentive to provide even transient improvements in quality. Finally, the monopolist has a positive incentive to conduct market research about quality, and produces more information than is socially optimal.