Inefficiency of credible strategies in oligopolistic resource markets with uncertainty

The implications of different information patterns for firms in oligopolistic resource markets are considered. The traditional open-loop Nash equilibrium with static information sets is one of many possible Nash equilibria and is not suitable for stochastic environments. When shocks to resource growth are serially uncorrelated, there are no gains from conditioning the harvest on past stock levels and the feedback or credible Nash equilibrium is the appropriate Nash equilibrium concept. This credible equilibrium assumes that firms have knowledge of current stocks of reserves, which typically leads to more rapid extraction of the resource and possibly extinction. Since the open-loop Nash equilibrium is efficient when demand is iso-elastic and extraction costs are zero, it is clear that an increase in information can be detrimental to firms in the industry.