Learning in asymmetric duopoly markets: competition in information and market correlation

This paper explores experimentation and learning in asymmetric duopoly markets with product differentiation and demand uncertainty. We define the concepts of strategic substitutability and strategic complementarity in information and we show how both the mode of information competition and the transmission of information across markets affect duopoly experimentation. We relate information competition with market competition and we find that, when goods are substitutes and the correlation between market shocks is negative, firms will have a higher incentive to experiment in asymmetric markets than in symmetric ones. The opposite result follows when such correlation is positive. Also, when goods are complements the above findings are reversed.JEL Classification: D83, C72The authors thank partial financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under project B2000-1429, from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under project SEJ2004-07554 and from the “Generalitat Valénciana” under project GRUPOS04/13.     

Optimal marketing behavior in oligopoly

In this paper we first generalize the Dorfman-Steiner theorem to the case of an oligopoly with multiple competitive reactions and expansible industry demand. We then review the literature through a series of corollaries. On the basis of the theorem developed, we attempt to shed light on a oligopolistic market over a period characterized by the raise of a leader.     

Manipulable behavior in international trade

In this paper, we present a Cournot duopoly model to analyze the manipulated behavior in international trade. The WTO is assumed as an arbitrator for the exchange in an oligopolistic industry and sets tariff rules according to the SDT principles; a firm's cost is private information both for the WTO and the foreign rivalries. Subsequent to our analysis of several cases we find that a firm may misreport to the WTO for more production revenue and the government may collude with a firm for higher welfare. It is shown that the misreporting and collusion incentives are related to the WTO tariff rule, the misreported cost and market size. Furthermore, a strategy proof tariff rule has been designed in which firms can never make his revenue better off by misreporting production cost.     

Sequential location under one-sided demand uncertainty

In entering a new market, firms face demand uncertainty. We depart from the usual Hotelling duopoly model with sequential entry. We allow firms to locate outside of the city and assume that market conditions are common knowledge. We then introduce one-sided demand uncertainty. We find that demand uncertainty can be seen as a differentiation force when faced by the first entrant and as an agglomeration force when faced by the second entrant. Finally, the second firm’s imperfect information implies higher welfare losses.     

Strategic Manipulation and Information Market Microstructure

This paper presents a model of strategic manipulation in the context of an informational duopoly. The fact that market manipulation by these duopolists may affect their cost and demand structures implies that they can strategically manipulate the market in order to influence the information market equilibrium. This paper derives an equilibrium manipulation and establishes important comparative-static properties that may characterise such markets. The informational duopoly is beset with two types of inefficiency: first, market imperfections drive a wedge between the marginal cost and the market price leading to the usual deadweight loss. Secondly, an act of manipulation raises the marginal cost of production and, thereby, causes further welfare loss in such markets. We provide a complete characterisation of an optimal mechanism that can stem the welfare loss in informational markets.     

Asymmetric Demand Information and Foreign Direct Investment*

We examine the FDI versus exports decision of firms competing in an oligopolistic (quantity‐setting) market under demand uncertainty and asymmetric information. Compared to a firm that chooses to export, a firm that chooses to set up a plant in the host market has superior information about local market demand. In addition to the well‐known tension between the fixed set‐up costs of investment, the additional variable costs of exports and oligopoly sizes, the incentive to invest abroad is explained by the strategic learning effect. FDI may be observed even if trade costs are zero. The analysis is robust to price competition and to the possibility that a foreign firm can engage in both FDI and exports.     

Strategic interaction between futures and spot markets

We study an oligopolistic industry where firms are able to sell in a futures market at infinitely many moments prior to the spot market. A kind of Folk-theorem is established: any outcome between perfect competition and Cournot can be sustained in equilibrium. We then find that the Cournot outcome can be sustained by a renegotiation-proof equilibrium. However, this is not true for the competitive outcome. Furthermore, only the monopolistic outcome is renegotiation-proof if firms can buy and sell in the futures market. These results suggest, contrary to existing literature, that the introduction of futures markets may have an anti-competitive effect.     

Strategic trade policy under asymmetric information with screening

The design of strategic rent-extracting trade policies requires information that may be private, such as the cost structure of an industry or parameters of the demand function. As a consequence, under asymmetric information, the design of these policies is problematic. We propose screening menus consisting of different instruments (tariff vs. quota) designed to solve this informational issue. We first use a simple model that examines a Cournot duopoly between a domestic firm and a foreign firm with linear demand and cost functions, with both firms supplying a homogeneous good on the domestic market. In this scenario, if the government does not have information regarding the demand parameter, which is known by both firms, a menu consisting of a rent-extracting tariff for a low demand parameter and a rent-extracting quota for a high demand parameter maximizes the government's objective function. This menu leads the domestic firm to reveal private information. We then generalize this framework to a scenario with imperfect information regarding the firms' marginal cost. Finally, we discuss the issue of quotas generating public revenues and study the case of a menu consisting of a tariff and a free quota.     

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.     

Endogenous Co-Leadership When Demand is Uncertain

Consider an oligopolistic industry where production is time-consuming, so that each firm needs to make quantity commitment by producing before the market opens. If demand uncertainty resolves some time before the market arrives, then those firms who produce early behave as simultaneous leaders (co-leaders), whilst those who wait until demand becomes observable will be followers. We discover that, in an n -firm oligopoly, the equilibrium number of co-leaders tends to be in excess of their socially optimal number, albeit both numbers monotonically decrease in the magnitude of demand uncertainty relative to the expected level of demand. We also find that, with demand uncertainty and the possibility of Stackelberg behaviour, whether the excess entry theorem applies depends upon the number of existing followers.     

International trade and competitiveness

We analyze the role of international market size differences in determining the investment in process R&D (and thus firms?? competitiveness) in a trade model with oligopolistic market structure, non-homothetic production technology and costly trade. We show that the R&D effort is higher (or even disproportionately so) for firms in the larger market, which causes endogenous asymmetries across countries. As a result, firms in the larger market have higher competitiveness, which increases their market shares in international markets. Furthermore, and contrary to what is predicted by Krugman (Am Econ Rev 70:950?C959, 1980) ??home market effect??, in equilibrium the larger country does not need to host a disproportionately higher share of the world??s industry than of the world??s demand. Despite this, the larger country can still continue to run a trade surplus in the oligopolistic sector, since it hosts firms with higher competitiveness than firms in the smaller country.     

An experimental study of adaptive behavior in an oligopolistic market game

We consider an oligopolistic market game, in which the players are competing firms in the same market of a homogeneous consumption good. The consumer side is represented by a fixed demand function. The firms decide how much to produce of a perishable consumption good, and they decide upon a number of information signals to be sent into the population in order to attract customers. Due to the minimal information provided, the players do not have a well-specified model of their environment. Our main objective is to characterize the adaptive behavior of the players in such a situation.     

Multi-Sector Model of Tradable Emission Permits

This paper presents a multi-sector model of tradable emission permits, which includes oligopolistic and perfectly competitive industries. The firms in oligopolistic industries are assumed to exercise market power in the tradable permit market as well as in the product market. Specifically, we examine the effects of the initial permit allocation on the equilibrium outcomes, focusing on the interaction among these product and permit markets. It is shown that raising the number of initial permits allocated to one firm in an oligopolistic industry increases the output produced by that firm. Under certain conditions, raising a “clean” (less-polluting) firm’s share of the initial permits can lead to reductions in both the product and permit prices. We discuss criteria for the socially optimal allocation of initial permits, considering the trade-off between production inefficiency and consumer benefit.     

Asymmetric Oligopoly and Foreign Direct Investment: Implications for Host-Country Tax-Setting

We present a duopoly model with heterogeneous firms that vary in cost-efficiency, each of which can choose to serve a foreign market by either exporting or local production. We do so to analyse the effects of a host-country corporate profit tax on both the scale and composition of FDI, and find that: strategic interaction between oligopolistic firms provides for a pattern of FDI that favours cost-inefficiency to the detriment of host-country welfare; and the host-country tax rate can be optimally used to avoid such patterns of FDI and instead promote direct investment by a relatively cost-efficient firm.     

JOINT VENTURES, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

We examine the impact of emission taxes on the pollution level in a duopoly framework with endogenous market structure. We demonstrate that an increase in emission taxes could trigger a regime switch from joint ventures to Cournot competition, causing the pollution level to increase. Such a phenomenon is likely to happen when the concerned industry is reasonably profitable, and the synergistic gain between joint venture partners is not too strong. Moreover, emission taxes can implement the first best outcome if and only if the industry is not too polluting. In case it is, the second best level of taxes may or may not equal the optimal tax under either joint venture or Cournot competition.     

Optimal research for cournot oligopolists

An oligopolistic industry faces uncertain demand. Firms can conduct research prior to production, obtaining private data that is informative of the unknown parameters of demand. Firm strategies thus consist of a level of research and a subsequent production strategy based on their research findings. We characterize the Bayes equilibrium of such a model when demand is linear, with unknown intercept, and the information structure has linear conditional expectations. We compare the solution to an efficiency standard, finding inefficiencies even in the competitive limit.     

Information acquisition under uncertainty: The case of labor-managed and profit-maximizing firms coexist

This paper analyzes the output decision and welfare implications of acquiring information under uncertainty for the duopoly market coexisted by a labor-managed firm (LMF) and a profit-maximizing firm (PMF). By establishing objective functions of LMF and PMF, it constructs the theoretical framework to discuss the role of information in the duopoly firstly. Then, based on the comparative static analysis, it discusses the effects of the market demand information and cost information on expected output and welfare. Finally it compares the role of information in LMF with the case of PMF, and the role of information in the LMF–PMF duopoly with those of LMF–LMF duopoly and PMF–PMF duopoly. It is shown that whereas the LMF's behavior is analogous to that of the PMF twin in some circumstances, the former may be entirely different from the latter in others. The LMF will be more sensitive to the information.     

Market structures in small open economies: Evidence from Denmark

This paper provides some stylized facts about market structure in Denmark, a country exhibiting high rates of exports and imports as is common in small developed economies. Utilizing disaggregated data at the firm-product level for manufacturing industries, we highlight the widespread presence of industries that are neither purely oligopolistic or monopolistically competitive; rather, they contain a few domestic leaders with numerous firms having insignificant domestic market shares. We also document that, relative to the latter type of firms, leaders have greater labor productivity, are more capital intensive, and pay higher wages; additionally, they are more likely to export and import, although they exhibit a greater domestic intensity relative to exporters with negligible domestic market shares. Finally, through a model of leaders and followers, we investigate how leaders can benefit from acting strategically against small firms and quantify its potential impact on industry outcomes through a numerical exercise.     

Minimum safety standard,consumers’ information and competition

This paper explores the effects of a standard influencing care choice with an endogenous market structure. Under duopoly, firms compete either in prices or in quantities. Firm(s) may increase the probability of offering safe products by incurring a cost. A standard may correct a safety underinvestment by firms. It is shown that the market structure (duopoly or monopoly) linked to the standard depends on the available information. Under perfect information about safety for consumers, the selected standard is always compatible with competition. The absence of standard due to safety overinvestment by firms only emerges under competition in quantities and a relatively low cost of safety improvement. Under imperfect information about safety for consumers, the selected standard often leads to a monopoly situation, essential for covering the cost of safety improvement. However, for relatively high values of this cost, a standard cannot impede the market failure arising from the lack of information.      

EFFECTS OF ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION WITHIN A FIRM ON OLIGOPOLISTIC MARKET OUTCOMES

I analyze the implications of the Laffont–Tirole type agency problems on oligopolistic market outcomes. In the model, a firm's marginal cost is decreasing in managerial effort and is subject to an additive shock. Both managerial effort and the realization of the shock are a manager's private information. A firm first offers a menu of contract to its manager, and then competes in the product market. As in the model of single principal and single agent, the incentive contracts implement efforts that are distorted downward relative to full information. In this model, with multiple agency relationships, an additional source for upward distortion of effort emerges as a result of the interaction in the product market. The results are robust to whether firms compete in price or quantity.