To Commit or Not to Commit: Endogenous Timing in Experimental Duopoly Markets

In this paper we experimentally investigate the extended game with action commitment of Hamilton and Slutsky (1990, Games Econ. Behavior2, 29–46). In their duopoly game firms can choose their quantities in one of two periods before the market clears. If a firm commits to a quantity in period 1, it does not know whether the other firm also commits early. By waiting until period 2, a firm can observe the other firm's period-1 action. Hamilton and Slutsky predicted the emergence of endogenous Stackelberg leadership. Our data, however, do not confirm the theory. While Stackelberg equilibria are extremely rare, we often observe endogenous Cournot outcomes and sometimes collusive play. This is partly driven by the fact that endogenous Stackelberg followers learn to behave in a reciprocal fashion over time, i.e., they learn to reward cooperation and to punish exploitation. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C92, D43.     

ENDOGENOUS TIMING IN MULTI-STAGE DUOPOLY GAMES*

This paper presents an investigation of the endogenous timing in multi-stage duopoly games in which duopolists choose two variables over two periods. The paper elaborates the two-stage strategic commitment game discussed by Brander and Spencer (1983). Duopolists decide their outputs and cost-reducing investments and they are allowed to choose which action to take first. The paper discusses two types of games; one is a three-stage game in which each duopolist can commit to the order of choices before it chooses its output or cost-reducing investments, and the other is a two-stage game in which it cannot. The paper finds that at least one firm chooses its output first. Furthermore, the three-stage game has the unique equilibrium outcome in which both firms choose their outputs first.     

The Influence of a Neighbouring Market on Product Qualities and Prices

This paper analyses a model of vertical product differentiation in which there is a primary market with two firms and a secondary market with no firms. Consumers in the secondary market incur a cost when purchasing the product from the primary market. The firms sequentially choose product quality and then simultaneously choose prices. Firm 1 always chooses the maximum quality, while firm 2's quality and the prices depend on the cost. Also, the cost determines which firm(s), if either, serves the secondary market. It is shown that the firms and the consumers of each market prefer different levels of costs.     

LONG‐TERM AND SHORT‐TERM CONTRACT IN A MIXED MARKET*

With a two‐period mixed oligopolistic framework, this paper analyses the interaction between the length of incentive contracts and market behaviour. Assuming an environment in which firms choose either a long‐term or short‐term contract, we examine how contracts differ between public and private firms. The results show that the contracts would differ completely among firms; public firm prefers to make a short‐term contract while private firm makes a long‐term contract.     

Industry shakeouts and product strategies: lessons from the US laser printer industry

Many industries experience a shakeout, which occurs when, after an initial increase, the number of firms drops significantly in a short period of time. A shakeout drives changes in the market structure and, thus, accompanying changes in firms’ strategies. In this paper, we explore differences in firms’ product strategies (i.e. product quality improvement, product line management, and product market strategy) before and after the initiation of an industry shakeout, focusing on the role of product exit. In analyzing a sample of US laser printer manufacturers and their products for the period between 1983 and 2002, we find clear differences in firms’ product exit decisions before and after the initiation of a shakeout. With these findings, our study contributes to the understanding of the link between industry shakeouts and firms’ product strategies.     

Nonminimal product differentiation as a bargaining outcome

It is well known that in a duopoly model of product choice with quadratic transportation cost, the firms locate at the extreme endpoints of the market. Jehiel (1992, Int. J. Ind. Organ, 10, 633–641) has examined this model in an infinite horizon setting where in the initial period the firms choose location and in subsequent periods charge the Nash bargaining solution prices. Then, in the unique equilibrium both firms locate at the center of the market. This paper examines the case when the firms instead charge the prices determined by either the egalitarian bargaining solution or the Kalai–Smorodinski bargaining solution. It is shown that central agglomeration is an equilibrium. Furthermore, there is a continuum of symmetric equilibria in addition where the firms locate apart from each other. So the products are not necessarily minimally differentiated. Thus different bargaining solutions provide quite different outcomes.     

DVD高技术企业市场决策中的专利博弈分析

在高技术领域中，跨国公司运用专利武器主导着整个市场，国内厂商除需要合理地进行技术和市场的定位外，更重要的途径是技术引进、消化、吸收与创新。本文以DVD行业为例，进行了完全信息条件下的博弈分析，得出一些具有启发性的结论。     

A Note on Regulating Oligopolistic Industries: A Hierarchical Model

In a 1994 paper, extending the well-known incremental surplus subsidy scheme of Sappington and Sibley, Schwermer presented a non-Bayesian incentive scheme for regulating a Cournot oligopoly industry. This note designs an oligopolistic incentive scheme for a hierarchical Stackelberg model in which firms choose outputs sequentially.     

民营高科技企业的成长模式与环境优化

民营高科技企业的发展依赖于内部成长模式的正确选择和外部环境的优化。民营高科技企业必须结合自身特点和市场前景选择切合企业实际的成长模式或模式组合,政府部门应在市场准入、企业融资、税费负担、权益保护等领域进行政策调整和制度创新,共同推动民营高科技企业的健康成长。     

Market power of firms and exchange-rate fluctuations

This paper explores the potential of firms to restrict industry outputs (market power) in oligopolistically organized markets where domestic firms compete with foreign ones. Within a stochastic price-setting supergame framework, market power is shown to be lower in general with flexible exchange rates for the following reasons. (i) The conditions that the fully collusive outcome—oligopolists maximizing joint profits — is sustainable in equilibrium become stronger if the exchange rate fluctuates, provided that fluctuations are sufficiently small. (ii) Even if full collusion can be sustained, industry outputs will be higher on the average with flexible than with fixed exchange rates.     

Location choices and third‐degree spatial price discrimination

This paper studies how firms choose their product differentiation levels when they engage in third‐degree price discrimination in the following product market competition in a location‐price model. We show that firms will not choose to locate at the two endpoints if different consumer groups have similar sizes. Hence, the principle of maximum differentiation does not hold, resulting in a more intense product market price competition. Only if the size of one group of consumers is sufficiently larger than that of the other group, would firms make their products as differentiated as possible by choosing the two endpoints as their locations.     

Mixed oligopoly and spatial agglomeration: a comment

Abstract.  This paper extends Matsushima and Matsumura (2003) by incorporating a large production cost difference between public and private firms in a quantity setting spatial mixed oligopoly. The public and private firms first choose their locations in a linear market and then compete in quantities. It is shown that for a significant inefficiency of the public firm, all firms (including both public and private firms) agglomerate at the market centre.     

一个新企业破坏性创新选择的比较分析

创新是企业发展的源泉,然而不同企业在创新类型的选择上并不是随意的。维持性创新是对现有主流市场上产品性能改进做出的贡献,而破坏性创新是立足于低端市场并对主流市场具有破坏性的创新行为。在比较分析了成熟企业与新企业在进行破坏性创新方面的不同特点后,认为成熟企业更适于维持性创新,而破坏性创新则是新企业的优先选择。     

产品多样性与企业区位选择

在一个线性城市市场中有两个企业,每个企业生产两种产品,且每个企业在其中一种产品上具有垄断力量,而在另外一种产品上与其他企业竞争.本文讨论这个市场上企业的最优选址问题,研究表明,企业选址与垄断类消费者和竞争类消费者的比例有关.当垄断类消费者的比例足够大时,企业选择集聚;当竞争类消费者的比例足够小时,企业选择尽可能远离对方;当二者数量相差不大时,企业将选择中间状态.与社会最优选址相比,两个企业之间的距离既可能过远也可能过近.     

When should firms choose a risky new technology? An oligopolistic analysis

How to choose technology type in a competitive environment is an important and challenging problem, which has received little attention from scholars. To fill this gap, this paper builds a game-theoretic model to examine whether a firm should choose to adopt a risky new technology or to adopt a safe new technology to reduce its marginal cost. I find that the result that each firm should always choose the risky technology in a duopoly may be invalid when more firms enter the market. In this scenario, some firms should adopt the safe technology for relatively high product substitutability because the advantage of employing the risky technology is threatened by the business stealing externality, finally forming heterogeneous equilibria in which both types of technologies are present. Furthermore, I show that the heterogeneous technology choice equilibria are more likely to arise when increasing number of firms enter the market, and that in these equilibria more firms always choose the risky technology than the safe technology. This study conveys relevant economic insights for competitive firms confronted with a dilemma between taking risks in pursuit of greater technology rewards and taking no risks for conservative technology returns.     

企业社会责任标准国际化背景下企业进入策略研究*

本文通过构建博弈模型，对企业社会责任（CSR）标准国际化背景下企业进入策略进行研究。本文发现，企业最优进入策略受到进入成本影响，当进入成本较低时所有企业都适合选择进入高CSR标准市场，当进入成本较高时所有企业都不适合选择进入，当成本介于两者之间时适合部分企业选择进入。在对社会福利的分析中还发现，当进入是企业最优策略时，无论是部分进入还是全部进入，企业承担更高的社会责任能同时提升企业利润和社会福利水平。     

Pollution abatement with disruptive R&D investment

This paper examines a model of investment in abatement where polluting firms produce output while investing in R&D. This investment, however, increases production costs, thus disrupting first-period output. We identify three equilibrium profiles where firms choose to either: (1) invest in R&D alone (thus rationalizing a common modeling assumption in the literature); (2) produce output alone; or (3) engage in both activities. We evaluate how the emergence of each result is affected by the market structure in which firms compete and by the severity of spillover effects. We then measure welfare levels in each equilibrium profile. Overall, we show that firms endogenously choose to focus on R&D only when the market is concentrated and spillover effects are small. In other type of industries, our findings indicate that firms may focus on output production or engage in both activities under relatively large conditions.     

异质性与跨国公司的战略选择

新新贸易理论将公司异质性引入到国际贸易理论中,从微观层面解释了公司国际化的战略选择。但它们通常假定两国是同质的,所以公司国际化的选择仅局限于出IZl贸易和水平型直接投资。本文构建了三国模型,考察了跨国公司的三种战略选择模式。理论研究表明,生产率最高的公司选择水平型直接投资,生产率较高的公司选择出口平台直接投资,生产率较低的公司选择出口贸易,生产率最低的公司只供应国内市场。发达国家的相对工人工资水平越高、发展中国家建厂成本越小,选择出口和水平型直接投资的公司会越少,而选择出口平台的直接投资公司会越多。     

异质性、分割生产与国际贸易

在产品的生产链条可以任意分割的情况下,本文考察了不同生产率的公司供应国外市场模式的差异。生产率水平较低的公司选择出口方式;生产率水平较高的公司选择分割生产投资方式,其中,生产率水平越高的公司配置在国外的生产环节越多;生产率水平最高的那些公司选择水平型投资方式。在行业层面,一个行业的技术可分割性越强和行业内公司生产率的异质性越大时,行业的产品出口相对于直接投资的比例越小。     

Multi-product firms in monopolistic competition: The role of scale-scope spillovers

We develop a monopolistic competition model where firms are multi-product, and the elasticity of substitution on the consumption side is variable. The cost function, otherwise very general, is such that expanding firm-level product range (scope) reduces marginal costs of production of existing varieties. This captures scale-scope spillovers, i.e. within-firm spillovers between the scale at which firms operate and their choices of scope. Firm-level product ranges and the mass of firms are endogenously determined. We show how an increase in market size affects the market outcome. A larger market leads to lower prices, larger outputs, and a wider industry-level product range. Firm-level product ranges expand (shrink) under sufficiently strong (weak) scale-scope spillovers. Last, under strong (weak) spillovers, the number of firms increases less (more) than proportionally to the market size.