Right to Repair: Pricing, Welfare, and Environmental Implications

Abstract

The “right-to-repair” (RTR) movement calls for government legislation that requires manufacturers to provide repair information, tools, and parts so that consumers can independently repair their own products with more ease. The initiative has gained global traction in recent years. Repair advocates argue that such legislation would break manufacturers’ monopoly on the repair market and benefit consumers. They further contend that it would reduce the environmental impact by reducing e-waste and new production. Yet the RTR legislation may also trigger a price response in the product market as manufacturers try to mitigate the profit loss. This paper employs an analytical model to study the pricing, welfare, and environmental implications of RTR. We find that, as the RTR legislation continually lowers the independent repair cost, manufacturers may initially cut the new product price and then raise it. This nonmonotone price adjustment may further induce a nonmonotone change in consumer surplus, social welfare, and the environmental impact. Strikingly, the RTR legislation can potentially lead to a lose–lose–lose outcome that compromises manufacturer profit, reduces consumer surplus, and increases the environmental impact despite repair being made easier and more affordable. This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management. Funding: Chen Jin gratefully acknowledges the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund [Tier 1, Grant R-253-000-144-133]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4401 .