Managerial Economics & Business Strategy 8th Edition by Michael Baye,Jeff Prince

Exercise 7

Suppose Toyota and Honda must decide whether to make a new breed of side-impact airbags standard equipment on all models. Side-impact airbags raise the price of each automobile by $1,000. If both firms make side-impact airbags standard equipment, each company will earn profits of $2.5 billion. If neither company adopts the side-impact airbag technology, each company will earn $1 billion (due to lost sales to other automakers). If one company adopts the technology as standard equipment and the other does not, the adopting company will earn a profit of $3 billion and the other company will lose $1.5 billion. If you were a decision maker at Honda, would you make side-impact airbags standard equipment? Explain.