Comparing welfare and profit in quantity and price competition within Stackelberg mixed duopolies

Abstract

We compare welfare and profits under price and quantity competition in Stackelberg mixed duopolies. Under public leadership, price competition always yields greater profits and welfare than quantity competition. By contrast, under private leadership, the result depends on the nationality of the private firm. When the private firm is domestic (foreign), welfare is greater under quantity (price) competition. However, private firms always earn more under price competition. Introducing the nonnegative profit constraint affects welfare ranking but not profit ranking. These results indicate that profit ranking is fairly robust to the time structure in Stackelberg mixed duopolies, but welfare ranking is not.