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S. Rudkin, “The Impact of Supermarkets on Prices, Consumer Behaviour and Welfare; Theoretical and Empirical Issues”, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Manchester, Manchester, 2008.

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Market Expansion Effects with Differentiated Goods: Monopoly versus Atomistic Competition

  AUTHORS: Paul Madden, Simon Rudkin

  KEYWORDS: Market Expansion Effects; Differentiated Goods; Socially Desirable Monopoly

  JOURNAL NAME: Theoretical Economics Letters, Vol.2 No.3, August 2, 2012

  ABSTRACT: In a horizontally differentiated goods market, where consumers face heterogeneous costs of entering the market and exhibit a taste for variety (via CES preferences) over the continuum of substitute goods, lowering the general market price level leads to increased consumer entry—the market expansion effect. Since atomistic competitors (each supplying 1 good) cannot influence this general price level, whilst a (multi-product) monopolist can, monopoly may lead to lower prices. In a model where market expansion effects are potentially large, the paper shows how monopoly leads to socially desirable lower prices, and greater variety, even when goods are arbitrarily close substitutes.