Monopoly and Quality Distortion: Effects and Remedies
研究垄断者如何扭曲产品质量并扩大产品范围，分析价格上限和最低质量标准两种补救措施的效果，发现轻微价格管制可提高社会福利，而质量标准的影响不确定。
A monopolist that sells in a market in which consumers differ in their willingness to pay for quality will distort and enlarge the range of products offered for sale. We examine the positive and normative impacts of remedies used to counteract such distortions. For the case of a price ceiling, the monopolist improves quality at the low quality end of the market, offsetting the distortion induced by the unregulated exercise of monopoly power. Social welfare can be shown to increase for a sufficiently slight degree of price regulation. For minimum quality standards, the social welfare implications are ambiguous because the standards may exclude some consumers from the market.