Bundling of Vertically Differentiated Products in a Supply Chain*
研究一个制造商和一个零售商组成的供应链中，由制造商或零售商捆绑基本品和高端品对产品线、利润的影响，发现零售商捆绑总利润不低于制造商捆绑，且产能约束会改变均衡结果。
ABSTRACT We consider a supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer. The manufacturer produces a basic and a premium product. If desired, a bundle of the two products might also be produced at a unit bundling cost. We allow either the manufacturer or the retailer to produce the bundle from the component products. All products, however, must be sold exclusively through the retailer. Using game theoretic models, we compare and contrast the equilibrium outcomes under retailer bundling and manufacturer bundling scenarios. We show that under manufacturer bundling, the manufacturer never offers the full product line composed of the basic product, the premium product, and the bundle, at equilibrium; while the same does not hold under retailer bundling. We show that total supply chain profit under retailer bundling weakly dominates that under manufacturer bundling and characterize the region in the parameter space where this domination is strict. We explore an extension where there is a capacity constraint in producing one or both of the component products and characterize the equilibrium outcomes. We show that unlike the infinite capacity case, offering the full product line is an equilibrium outcome under manufacturer bundling when the capacity of the premium good is limited.