寡头市场具有混合捆绑销售契约的竞争分析

Competitive Analysis of Contracts with Mixed Bundling in Oligopoly Markets

在寡头竞争市场环境下,生产完全互补产品的厂商可以通过谈判签约并使用"混合捆绑"策略进行竞争,如电信运营商与手机厂商共同推出的签约套餐和预付费套餐。针对这种行为,文章构建了一个包含两组互补品厂商的寡头博弈模型,研究混合捆绑销售契约对市场价格、厂商利润和社会福利的影响。研究表明:当只有一组厂商签订混合捆绑销售契约时,签约厂商能够从捆绑折扣中获得竞争优势,而竞争对手则被迫降低自己产品价格并在竞争中处于劣势;当两组厂商均签订混合捆绑销售契约时,围绕捆绑产品的竞争将使得捆绑折扣进一步提高,但各自的利润却下降了。然而当这种签约策略内生时,所有厂商将选择签订契约并进行捆绑销售,从而陷入"囚徒困境"。最终,在互补产品"纵向外部性"和系统产品"横向外部性"的共同作用下,混合捆绑销售契约提高了消费者剩余而降低了社会福利。基于本文分析,应该反对竞争政策对厂商谈判签订契约使用混合捆绑策略进行竞争的行为。文章的贡献在于从契约的角度研究厂商之间的捆绑销售策略,并运用统一的分析框架考察了不同契约结构下厂商实施捆绑销售的动机,对于深化捆绑销售的理论研究和完善竞争政策具有重要的借鉴意义。

By packaging different kinds of products,firms always use mixed bundling to gain competitive advantages.In traditional markets,single-product firms mainly bundle products through merging its complementary firms.As antitrust authorities pay more attention to mergers,some firms are turning to engage in mixed bundling by contracts.For example,mobile phone firms and telecom service providers offer contract plans and prepaid plans with mobile phone,which are essentially mixed bundling.With the development of information technology,more and more internet enterprises have begun to implement the"mixed bundling contracts".In this context,the"Anti-Monopoly Guide on Platform Economy"issued by the State Council of China has made it clear that platforms may adopt bundling and restrict market competition,which has been emphasized as"enhancing antitrust and prevent capital sprawl"in the 14 th-Five-Year Plan of China.Thus,it is of great significance to analyze the motivation of manufacturers to implement mixed bundling contracts and its influence on the market competition for a better business environment and the improvement of anti-monopoly policy.Based on the research of Choi(2008)and Armstrong and Vickers(2010),this paper constructs a dynamic game model to study the competition problem of oligarchic firms that produce complete complementary products by signing the"mixed bundling contracts"strategy,which is common in the real telecom market,computer hardware and software market and other service markets.The results show that:In the case of onesided bundling contracts,contract firms will gain competitive advantages by increasing the bundling price and reducing the component price through mixed bundling contracts,while its competitors are forced to lower their prices and fallen into a competitive disadvantage.In the case of two-sided bundling contracts,firms’profit decreases though the bundling price decreases and the component price increases,but consumer surplus still increases and the total social welfare decreases.Finally,all of the firms choose to sign contracts with mixed bundling and fall into the"Prisoners’Dilemma".Thus,competition policy should be opposed to the strategic behavior of firms negotiating and signing contracts with mixed bundling.The innovation of this paper lies in that:It develops a unified analytical framework based on Choi(2008)and Armstrong and Vickers(2010),which extends and deepens existing studies.In particular,due to the interactive influence of the"vertical externality"of complementary products and the"horizontal externality"of competition,the results are different with previous studies.It also explains the competitive strategy of firms and the mechanism of bundling through mixed bundling contracts,providing a new perspective for understanding the bundling motivation.The research of this paper has important application value in reality.For example,in the telecom market,we observe that some telecom operators negotiate with mobile phone firms to sign contracts with mixed bundling to compete with their rivals.Based on the conclusion of this paper and the implementation status of anti-monopoly policy in China,policy suggestions are summarized as follows:(1)When antitrust authorities evaluate the effect of bundling competition,the product characteristics and market competition status should be considered.(2)Antitrust authorities should understand the motivation of bundling and evaluate the long-term welfare effect of mixed bundling contracts.(3)It is suggested to introduce third-party evaluation to build a multi-level governance model of mixed bundling contracts.