Market Structure, Durability, and Maintenance Effort
Market Structure, Durability, and Maintenance Effort
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市场结构、耐久性和维护工作
DOI：
10.2307/2296716
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发表时间：
1974
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. Schmalensee
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Schmalensee
Peter Swan [11, 12] 最近表明，在一些强有力的假设下，利润最大化的垄断者应该生产与具有相同成本结构的竞争行业完全相同的耐用品。 3 本文放宽了 Swan 的假设之一，并允许对相关耐用品进行维护，以降低其恶化速度。我们研究了这种情况下的市场均衡，结果表明，当商品被出售而不是出租时，耐用性并不独立于市场结构。消费者（可能是公司或家庭）被认为不重视耐用性；他们只关心商品的可用服务流。假设该流量与商品的库存成正比，并且在不失一般性的情况下，我们将比例常数视为单位。当商品被出售时，假设买家又可以在完美的二手市场上购买、出售或租赁。资本市场也是完美的，因此生产商及其客户可以以相同的（连续复利）利率无限量地借入或贷出。假定规模报酬严格恒定，因为生产一单位商品的边际成本仅取决于其内在的耐用性，而不取决于生产率。4 假定客户具有完美的远见。5 假定所涉及的商品会呈指数级恶化或衰减。新的假设是，衰减率取决于内置衰减率，即商品在制造时被赋予的耐用性，以及每单位的维护支出水平。因此，假设维护服务的供应完全弹性。假设维护支出始终由商品的所有者决定，当商品被租赁时，所有者是制造商，而当商品被出售时，所有者是买方。由于各方的目标不同，他们可能会选择不同的维护政策。如果他们这样做，制造商控制下的数量的均衡值可能取决于货物是出租还是出售。采用以下符号：
Peter Swan [11, 12] has recently shown that under a number of strong assumptions a profit-maximizing monopolist should produce durable goods of exactly the same durability as a competitive industry with the same cost structure.3 The present paper relaxes one of Swan's assumptions and allows maintenance to be performed on the durable good in question in order to reduce the rate at which it deteriorates. We investigate market equilibrium in such a situation, and we show that durability is not independent of market structure when the good is sold rather than rented. Consumers, who may be firms or households, are assumed not to value durability as such; they are only concerned with the available flow of services of the good. This flow is assumed proportional to the stock of the good, and, without loss of generality, we take the proportionality constant to be unity. When the good is sold, it is assumed that buyers in turn can buy, sell, or rent in perfect secondhand markets. Capital markets are also perfect, so that producers and their customers can borrow or lend unlimited amounts at the same (continuously compounded) rate of interest. Strictly constant returns to scale are posited, in that the marginal cost of producing a unit of the good depends only on its built-in durability and not on the rate of production.4 Customers are assumed to have perfect foresight.5 The good involved is assumed to deteriorate or decay exponentially. The new assumption is that the decay rate depends on the built-in decay rate, i.e. the durability the good is endowed with when it is manufactured, and on the level of maintenance spending per unit. Maintenance services are thus assumed to be in perfectly elastic supply. It is assumed that maintenance spending is always determined by the owner of the good, who is the manufacturer when the good is rented but the buyer when the good is sold. As these parties have different objectives, they may choose different maintenance policies. To the extent that they do this, the equilibrium values of the quantities under the manufacturer's control may depend on whether the good is rented or sold. The following notation is employed: