A Strategic Perspective on Durable Goods

摘要

In their 2012 article, Albuquerque and Bronnenberg (hereafter, AB) develop an empirical model of the automobile market by specifically accounting for consumer, dealer, and manufacturer behavior. This is a provocative and thoughtful paper that addresses several key issues centered on the role of the dealer network in determining prices and profits under different economic conditions. More generally, the paper makes an important contribution to the study of the auto market. In this comment, we explore three issues raised in their paper, but we take a somewhat different approach. Instead of developing empirical estimates to conduct counterfactual experiments, we look to the analytic durable goods and channels literature to develop predictions on what one might expect if