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100 _aJanssen, Maarten C.W and Ke, T. Tony.
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245 _aSearching for service
260 _aAmerican Economic Journal: Microeconomics
300 _a12(1), Feb, 2020: p.188-219
520 _aSince Telser (1960), there is a well-established argument that a competitive market will not provide service due to freeriding. We show that with search frictions, the market may well provide service if the cost of doing so is not too large. Any market equilibrium with service provision has two or more firms providing service, implying overprovision of service as the social optimum mandates at most one service provider. Firms that provide service and those that do not can coexist, where consumers direct their search to service providers first to obtain service, and to nonservice providers later to enjoy lower prices.- Reproduced
773 _aAmerican Economic Journal: Microeconomics
906 _aCONSUMERS
942 _cAR