Learning through experimentation in an oligopoly market with asymmetric information

Unlike previous literature, in which firms compete in the market with the same information, this article analyses a two‐period duopoly game in which only one firm is completely informed about the market conditions, whereas the other firm is unaware of one parameter of the demand curve. In this setting, we describe how the informed firm uses its price set in period 1 in order to reveal or to hide its private information and how the uninformed firm uses its own price in period 1 in order to learn the market conditions when they are not revealed by its rival. Specifically, we obtained the conditions under which the informed firm sets a higher price than its optimum in the first period to hide its private information in certain cases and to reveal that information in others. Likewise, this paper describes the conditions under which the uninformed firm sets a lower price than its optimum in period 1 in order to learn the unknown parameter. We found that the informed firm's cost of revealing its private information to its rival is lower than the uninformed firm's cost of learning the market conditions.     

价格歧视下四种市场类型的消费者剩余

市场按垄断程度由高到低可以分为四种类型：完全垄断市场、寡头垄断市场、垄断竞争市场和完全竞争市场。在发生二度价格歧视的情形下,这四种市场的价格歧视程度的定量结果是一个值得研究的问题。在二度价格歧视下,用微分法研究了一个垄断厂商市场情形,用博弈论方法研究了n厂商市场情形的均衡总产量,均衡价格,均衡总收益,总收益增长率,消费者剩余,厂商占有的消费者剩余率。最后把各种市场情形的上述指标归纳为统一的公式并详细分析了其性质。     

THE TREATMENT OF “HOME OWNERSHIP” IN THE CPI*

This paper explores the imputed service price approach to the pricing of the services of consumer-owned-and-used durables in the construction of the consumer price index, using the services of owner-occupied housing as an illustration. A theoretical framework for analyzing this question is first developed. Certain practical problems are then discussed. The conceptual difficulty of constructing an appropriate rate of return on the basis of available data on interest rates and house prices, in the context of inflation, is explored. Two arguments are advanced that statistical agencies ought not to follow the imputed service price approach in pricing the services of owner-occupied dwellings and other consumer durables. On the one hand, nominal interest rates will, in any short period, reflect monetary policy and not any change in the money “rental” of owner-occupied houses. Second, movements in nominal interest rates will also reflect changes in the money price of pure consumption goods, as well as changes in the money price of houses. The argument is extended to other consumer durables and, in the limiting case, to monetary balances, and it is concluded that in all but trivial cases the application of the service price approach leads to price movements of little or no meaning.     

Exogeneity of Money and its Policy Implications for Price Control: Evidence from South Asia

Abstract. We investigate the policy role that could be assigned to money stock in controlling the price level in four South Asian countries, namely, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The problem of policy assignment associated with the Granger non‐causality tests is pointed out. Various forms of exogeneity are tested. Money stocks (M₁ and M₂), consumer price index (CPI) and real GDP are cointegrated and causally related but we find overwhelming evidence of endogeneity of money. The endogeneity of money does not support the authorities’ policy stance of controlling price level through the control of money stock.     

The Formation of Consumer Inflationary Expectations in Australia*

This paper analyzes the quantitative price expectations of consumers as obtained from consumer surveys. Price expectations are considered as functions of (i) past rates of inflation (ii) other economic variables, and (iii) consumer sentiment variables. The dominant influence on expectations is the most recent change in the consumer price index. Wage-indexation decisions and changes in the money supply also exert a significant influence on mean expectations. The variability of price expectations across consumers is proportional to the mean level of expectations.     

Natural monopoly and differential pricing

Under uniform pricing a monopolist cannot make a positive profit in equilibrium. I analyze how differential pricing can be exploited by a natural monopolist to deter entry when entry is costless. In a two-stage game with price competition before quantity competition I show that the incumbent firm can deter entry and make a positive profit in equilibrium. The incumbent sets two different prices, the low price to deter entry and the high price to generate profit. Entry is not possible because of scale effects. If dumping is allowed for all firms no positive profits are realizable, but welfare is reduced. I show that for some parameter values the incumbent is forced to engage in a stunt (i.e., set a negative low price) to keep entrants out.     

Rational expectations macro models with possible steady-state inflation andunemployment

Consider an economy exhibiting the conventional IS-LM relationships, Phillips curve type price adjustment equations, and rational inflationary expectations. We demonstrate that starting from the disequilibrium situation of either the Keynesian unemployment or the demand inflation type in which money is nonneutral, the economy converges to an equilibrium situation in which all markets clear. On the other hand, starting from the disequilibrium situation of the classical unemployment type in which money is nonneutral, the economy converges to a state of rest in which the goods and the labor markets remain out of equilibrium. However, money is neutral at this state of rest.     

On Persistent Demand Shortages: A Behavioural Approach

We incorporate two sets of behavioural assumptions, fairness concerns and insatiable desire for money, into a dynamic optimization model to illuminate how they can generate persistent aggregate demand shortages. We obtain the conditions for persistent unemployment and temporary unemployment. Policy implications differ significantly between the two cases. A monetary expansion raises private consumption under temporary unemployment but not under persistent unemployment. A fiscal expansion may or may not increase short‐run private consumption but crowds out long‐run consumption under temporary unemployment. Under persistent unemployment, however, a fiscal expansion always increases private consumption. The “paradoxes of toil and flexibility” also appear.     

Utility Regulation and Risk Allocation: The Roles of Marginal Cost Pricing and Futures Markets

The effects on consumer welfare of requiring a utility facing cost or demand risk to use either a fixed retail price or marginal cost pricing are assessed. With marginal cost pricing and cost volatility an efficient futures market allows consumer welfare to be at least as high in every state as with the fixed price. With demand risk marginal cost pricing can benefit the consumer in every state without harming the firm if the profit difference is transferred to the consumer. A futures market can act as a partial replacement for the transfer.     

Unemployment, Real Wages and the Money Supply in Australia*

Many observers have attributed the high unemployment experienced in Australia in the 1970s to the rises in real wages which have occurred in the decade. An alternative or additional hypothesis is that unemployment has resulted from policy directed at controlling inflation and that this has been exacerbated by the occurrence of adverse external factors, particularly bul not solely the oil price shocks, which have made inflation more difficult than otherwise to control .
The results of econometric tests suggest that a significant portion of fluctuations in the unemployment rate can be explained by real wage movements, and as well monetary policy through its effects on the real money supply also seems to affect unemployment. Both real wage rises and monetary restrictions appear to have contributed to the jump in unemployment in 1974–75, and since then the continuing high and rising unemployment rate is closely associated with the low growth rate of the real money supply .     

中国房地产价格波动与宏观经济——基于SVAR模型的研究

房地产价格与宏观经济有着紧密的联系。本文利用1999年1季度至2009年2季度的居民消费价格指数、国内生产总值、货币供给与住宅价格指数的季度数据,应用结构向量自回归模型估计了供给冲击、需求冲击与货币政策冲击对中国房地产价格变动的动态影响以及房地产价格冲击对通货膨胀率、国内生产总值增长率与货币存量增长率变动的动态影响。结果显示正向的房地产价格冲击最终导致通货膨胀率和国内生产总值增长率上升到一个新的高度,使货币供给增长率下降到一个较低的水平;而正向的供给冲击、需求冲击与货币政策冲击最终均导致房地产价格增长率上升到一个新的高度。     

环境偏好和环境税视角下企业技术决策博弈分析

构建双寡头垄断市场下企业技术决策的博弈模型,并将消费者环境偏好和环境税引入模型。首先分析消费者的环境偏好对市场需求的影响;然后运用逆向归纳法探讨企业在环境税约束下的两阶段博弈;最后分析消费者环境偏好和环境税对企业技术决策的综合影响。研究表明:消费者的环境偏好降低了双寡头垄断企业的市场需求,激发了企业在没有环境税下采纳绿色技术的动机;当征收环境税时,企业采纳绿色技术的效益与环境税率的关系曲线呈倒U型,消费者的环境偏好与环境税引发的效益区间正比变动。     

Effects of capacity constraints on mixed duopoly

This paper highlights the mixed duopoly substitutable product with an upstream input subject to capacity constraints. The effects of capacity constraints on the mixed economy are captured. Firstly, the degree of public ownership improves the firm size difference, the price difference, the price dispersion and consumer surplus, while it reduces the price and the second firm’s profits. Secondly, the efficiency difference reduces the firm size difference, the price difference and the price dispersion. Finally, under scarce capacity, the relationship between the total capacity and, the firm size difference, the price difference and the price dispersion, depends on the efficiency of the two firms.     

Price leadership and firm size asymmetry: an experimental analysis

We use laboratory experiments to examine the effect of firm size asymmetry on the emergence of price leadership in a price-setting duopoly with capacity constraints. Independent of the level of size asymmetry, the unique subgame perfect equilibrium of our timing game predicts that the large firm is the price leader. Experimental data show that price leadership by the large firm is frequent, but simultaneous moves are also often observed. Profit outcomes in the previous period affect the subjects’ decisions to announce or wait in a way that hampers convergence to the equilibrium. Furthermore, while both small and large firms display a strong tendency to wait to announce their price when firm size asymmetry is low, they often set prices early when size asymmetry is high. Prices are higher when price setting is sequential rather than simultaneous and when firm size asymmetry is high. Hence, price leadership by either type of firm has an anti-competitive effect that is more pronounced when the size difference between firms is large.     

A new model of equilibrium involuntary unemployment

Summary. We show that equilibrium involuntary unemployment emerges in a multi-stage game model where all market power resides with firms, on both the labour and the output market. Firms decide wages, employment, output and prices, and under constant returns there exists a continuum of subgame perfect Nash equilibria involving unemployment and positive profits. A firm does not undercut the equilibrium wage since then high wage firms would attract its workers, thus forcing the undercutting firm out of both markets. Full employment equilibria are payoff dominated by unemployment equilibria, and the arguments are robust to decreasing returns.Received: 21 May 2001, Revised: 15 April 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: D43, E24.Correspondence to: Leo KaasWe thank an anonymous referee, Woojin Lee, Klaus Ritzberger and seminar participants in Konstanz, Manchester, Milan, Prague, Vienna, and Warwick for helpful comments. Financial support from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) under grant L138251030 and from the Manchester School Visiting Fellowship Scheme is gratefully acknowledged.     

The Informational Role of Prices*

We consider a dominant firm with a competitive fringe in order to investigate the informational role of prices. The fringe is necessary for the existence of a unique, fully revealing equilibrium, in which the price reveals the quality of the good to uninformed buyers. A higher price triggers more sales on the part of the competitive fringe, reducing both residual demand and profits. We find that a larger share of uninformed buyers increases the price and reduces the quantity sold by the dominant firm, but increases the quantity sold by the competitive fringe. This, in turn, reduces consumer surplus and welfare.     

Stabilisation, Policy Targets and Unemployment in Imperfectly Competitive Economies

This paper argues that the rate of equilibrium unemployment depends on the objectives of the Central Bank. In a model where the Central Bank uses monetary policy to stabilise the economy, we show that unemployment and inflation will be lower with an inflation target than with targets for output, money or nominal GDP. The intuition for this is that the elasticities of demand in both the product and the labour markets are greater when there is an inflation target; we show that this leads to a lower mark-up of price over marginal cost and makes wages more sensitive to unemployment.     

Disequilibrium dynamics in a simple macroeconomic model

The dynamic behavior of a simple macroeconomic disequilibrium model is analyzed in which consumers' changes in money holdings constitute the dynamic link between any two periods. It is shown that, under constant government consumption, a constant production function (no investment), and fixed prices and wages, stationary states of Keynesian unemployment are stable whereas those of repressed inflation are globally unstable. Possibilities of unemployment and output cycles are indicated for fixed wages as well as for some very simple class of wage and price adjustment mechanisms.     

Personalized pricing and advertising: An asymmetric equilibrium analysis

We study personalized price competition with costly advertising among n quality-cost differentiated firms. Strategies involve mixing over both prices and whether to advertise. In equilibrium, only the top two firms advertise, earning “Bertrand-like” profits. Welfare losses initially rise then fall with the ad cost, with losses due to excessive advertising and sales by the “wrong” firm. When firms are symmetric, the symmetric equilibrium yields perverse comparative statics and is unstable. Our key results apply when demand is elastic, when ad costs are heterogeneous, and with noise in consumer tastes.     

中国名义货币状况指数的构建

构建和监测货币状况指数是将汇率纳入货币政策框架中的一种可行方式.文章在系统分析汇率和货币供应量等变量对国内消费者价格水平的价格传递链条的基础上,运用VAR方法来构建了2005年7月人民币汇率制度改革以来的中国名义货币状况指数.研究表明,M1和名义有效汇率在名义MCI中的权重之比为1:1.17,在此基础上构建的名义MCI与消费价格指数走势是高度吻合的.从货币政策立场指示器和对通货膨胀进行监测的角度看,我国央行应关注并定期发布货币状况指数.