NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Infant-Industry Protection Reconsidered: The Case of Informational Barriers to Entry

Gene M. Grossman, Henrik Horn

NBER Working Paper No. 2159 (Also Reprint No. r1189)*
Issued in May 1989
NBER Program(s):   ITI    IFM

In industries with imperfect consumer information, the lack of a reputation puts latecomers at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis established firms. We consider whether the existence of such informational barriers to entry provides a valid reason for temporarily protecting infant producers of experience goods and services. Our model incorporates both moral hazard in an individual firm's choice of quality and adverse selection among potential entrants into the industry. We find that infant-industry protection often exacerbates the welfare loss associated with these market imperfections.

*Published: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. CIII, No. 415, Issue 4,pp. 767-787, (November 1988).

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Information about Free Papers

You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, a site with your domain name in ".GOV", or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access.

E-mail:

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org