Search results for "Cournot"
showing 9 items of 19 documents
Stackelberg Equilibrium with Many Leaders and Followers. The Case of Setup Costs
2016
I provide conditions that guarantee that a Stackelberg game with a setup cost and an integer number of leaders and followers has an equilibrium in pure strategies. The main feature of the game is that when the marginal follower leaves the market the price jumps up, so that a leader’s payoff is neither continuous nor quasiconcave. To show existence I check that a leader’s value function satisfies the following single crossing condition: When the other leaders produce more the leader never accommodates entry of more followers. If demand is strictly logconcave, and if marginal costs are both non decreasing and not flatter than average costs, then a Stackelberg equilibrium exists. Besides showi…
Strategic behavior and partial cost sharing
2003
Abstract The main objects here are games in which players mainly compete but nonetheless collaborate on some subsidiary activities. Play assumes a two-stage nature in that first-stage moves presume coordination of some subsequent tasks. Specifically, we consider instances where second-stage coordination amounts to partial cost sharing, anticipated and sustained as a core solution. Examples include regional Cournot oligopolies with joint transportation. We define and characterize equilibria, and inquire about their existence.
Paolo Sylos Labini Vindicated
2017
In the first part of our chapter we critically discuss i) Modigliani’s 1958 interpretation of Sylos Labini’s Oligopolio e Progresso Tecnico (1957), ii) the following debate concerning the Sylos Postulate −the assumption according to which “potential entrants behave as though they expected existing firms to adopt the policy most unfavourable to them, namely, the policy of maintaining output while reducing the price (or accepting reductions) to the extent required to enforce such an output policy” − and iii) the incumbent’s choice of productive capacity to install as strategic entry deterrence. In the second part of the chapter we develop a model in which, as in Dixit (1980), there are three …
Duopoly experimentation: Cournot competition
1999
Abstract This paper analyzes learning behavior in an industry facing uncertainty. We consider a duopoly game where firms have imperfect information about market demand and they learn through observing market prices. The main body of our study consists of showing how firms make the price a more informative signal through their experimental behavior, and how this behavior compares to its monopoly counterpart. We extend previous analysis to the case where the demand unknown parameter takes values on the real line. We also find that experimentation under Cournot duopoly is smaller than under monopoly whenever the demand's unknown parameter is sufficiently precise.
Stackelberg equilibrium with many leaders and followers. The case of zero fixed costs
2017
Abstract I study a version of the Stackelberg game with many identical firms in which leaders and followers use a continuous cost function with no fixed cost. Using lattice theoretical methods I provide a set of conditions that guarantee that the game has an equilibrium in pure strategies. With convex costs the model shows the same properties as a quasi-competitive Cournot model. The same happens with concave costs, but only when the number of followers is small. When this number is large the leaders preempt entry. I study the comparative statics and the limit behavior of the equilibrium and I show how the main determinants of market structure interact. More competition between the leaders …
Union structure and incentives for innovation
2002
Abstract In this paper, we consider the effect of union structure on the adoption of innovation in the context of Cournot duopoly. With a market size large enough, we show that the incentive to innovate is higher under a decentralized union structure (with each firm facing its own independent union) than under an industry-wide union. However, for a small market size (or, equivalently, for sufficiently drastic potential innovation), the new technology is more likely to be adopted in the presence of a centralized union. This result goes against the conventional view that unionization harms the incentive to innovate.
Environmental taxation, information precision, and information sharing
2022
We analyze how environmental taxes should be optimally levied when the regulators and firms face costs uncertainties in a Stackelberg-Cournot game. We allow linear-quadratic payoffs functions coupled with an affine information structure encompassing common and private information with noisy signals. In the first period, the regulator chooses the intensity of emissions taxes in order to reduce externalities. In the second period, facing industry-related and firm-specific shocks, firms compete in the marketplace as Cournot rivals and choose outputs. We show that, given costs uncertainties with non-uniform quality of signals across firms, the regulator sets differentiated tax policy. We also e…
The Relevance of Bargaining for the Licensing of a Cost-reducing Innovation*
2001
In the context of a Cournot duopoly, this paper studies the licensing of a cost-reducing innovation by means of three possible allocation mechanisms: auction, fixed fee, and direct negotiation. Once the use of an arbitrary reserve price (which is not credible) has been excluded, it is no longer true that auction always yields higher profit to the patentee than a fixed fee. However, the authors propose a direct negotiation mechanism which restores the patentee’s profit to the level of an auction with an arbitrary reserve price (which is unimplementable). Direct negotiation is superior to both an auction with a nonarbitrary reserve price and a fixed fee. From the social point of view, however…
Endogenous firm asymmetry and cooperative R&D in linear duopoly with spillovers
2005
In a linear model ofcost reducing R&D/Cournot competition, firm asymmetry is shown to be sustainable as subgame perfect Nash equilibrium with R&D competition only ifthe productivity of research is sufficiently large relative to the benefits from imitation. In such a case, industry-wide cost reduction and firms asymmetry are increasing and decreasing functions of the spillover rate, respectively. In the absence of spillovers, a symmetric joint lab generates higher consumer surplus and social welfare than a pair ofasymmetric competitors. If spillovers are not too small, asymmetric R&D competition is advantageous toconsumers, but not to firms.