We analyze the effect of resale price maintenance (RPM) on the inter-brand
competition in a multi-producer and multi-distributor environment. Previous
RPM literature mainly focused either on the effect of reducing intra-brand
price competition or on the effect of promoting inter-brand service
competition. We take into account the brand-specificity of RPM-induced
pre-sale services and show that RPM can soften not only intra-brand but also
inter-brand price competition.