Dynamic Oligopolistic Competition Research Articles

Dynamic Oligopolistic Competition with Uncertainty and Supply Disruption Effects

We consider a finite-horizon discrete-time dynamic model of oligopolistic competition, with uncertain supply. The firms (retailers) make their decisions on quantities (sales) and orders of goods from a nonstrategic manufacturer taking into account uncertainty in demand parameters and available supply capacity. The retailers need to satisfy the joint available supply capacity constraint. The model is described as a game played over an event tree with given transition probabilities. We find a normalized equilibrium for the game with coupling constraints. The two-step procedure to find this equilibrium is described. We provide the necessary conditions of the equilibrium and examine different scenarios of uncertainties in the model by numerical simulations.

Strategic location choice under dynamic oligopolistic competition and spillovers

This paper investigates firms׳ optimal location choices explicitly accounting for the role of inwards and outwards knowledge spillovers in a dynamic Cournot oligopoly with firms that are heterogeneous in their ability to carry out cost-reducing R&D. Firms can either locate in an industrial cluster or in isolation. Technological spillovers are exchanged between the firms located in the cluster. It is shown that a technological leader has an incentive to locate in isolation only if her advantage exceeds a certain threshold, which is increasing in firms׳ discount rate, in industry dispersion, and in the intensity of knowledge spillovers. Scenarios are identified where although it is optimal for the technological leader to locate in isolation, from a welfare perspective it would be desirable that she locates in the cluster.

Strategic Location Choice Under Dynamic Oligopolistic Competition and Spillovers

This paper investigates firms’ optimal location choices explicitly accounting for the role of inwards and outwards knowledge spillovers in a dynamic Cournot oligopoly with firms that are heterogeneous in their ability to carry out cost-reducing R&D. Firms can either locate in an industrial cluster or in isolation. Technological spillovers are exchanged between the firms in the cluster. It is shown that a technological leader has an incentive to locate in isolation only if her advantage exceeds a certain threshold, which is increasing in firms’ discount rate, in industry dispersion, and in the intensity of knowledge spillovers. Scenarios are identified where although it is optimal for the technological leader to locate in isolation, from a welfare perspective it would be desirable that she locates in the cluster.

Corporate Environmentalism in Dynamic Oligopoly

This study investigates how an increase in the firms' environmental consciousness affects the environment and economic welfare in the presence of dynamic oligopolistic competition where firms' objective may include the society's damage from stock pollution as well as their profits. If all firms are symmetric, an increase in the environmental consciousness reduces consumer surplus and social welfare in the short-run. However, profits may increase if the firms are initially less environmentally conscious. The long-run effects are similar to the short-run ones except for the effect on social welfare because pollution stock is reduced in the steady state. In the case of asymmetric firms, an increase in the polluting firms' environmental consciousness reduces their output whereas it increases the clean firms' output. The clean firms become better off, but depending on the relative number of polluting firms versus clean firms, the polluting firms' profits may increase or decrease.

Trade and Global Pollution in Dynamic Oligopoly with Corporate Environmentalism

AbstractThis paper examines the effects of international trade in the presence of dynamic oligopolistic competition where the stock of global pollution has a negative welfare effect and the oligopolists' objectives may include society's pollution damage as well as private profits. In a symmetric case where the number of firms, emission coefficient, and firms' environmental consciousness are the same in two countries, an opening of trade unambiguously improves each country's welfare in the short run. In the long run, however, trade increases the stock of global pollution and hence, whether opening of trade is beneficial depends on the parameters of the economy. If there are asymmetries between countries, the short‐run gains from trade in both countries are not necessarily guaranteed, because trade liberalization may increase output in one country and reduce it in the other. Moreover, free trade may result in lower pollution stock than under autarky.

Dynamics of retail pricing: a case study of fluid milk

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a new model to empirically analyze retail pricing dynamics led by the competition between retailers, using fluid milk markets of three US metropolitan areas as a case study. The research is important for Chinese public policy makers to find the reasons of retail price fluctuations and provides policy makers with the direction and rationale to intervene in retailing markets.Design/methodology/approachThis paper empirically applies dynamic oligopolistic competition model using Markov switching regression. The dataset used in this study includes 58 four‐week‐ending observations covering the period from March 1996 to July 2000 for three cities, Boston, Dallas, and Seattle.FindingsThe empirical results illustrate the Markov switching regression not only successfully identifies the Markov perfect equilibrium in each market, but decomposes the retail price series into the corresponding equilibrium regimes. The forecasting power of the model is surprising so it can serve as a price monitor of the government. Additionally, the model reveals the different consumer welfare implications given different price regimes. The welfare analysis shows that consumers are most likely to be worse off through price fluctuations, while they are not always better off through a sticky (stable) price series in a market.Research limitations/implicationsThe first limitation of the paper is the retail price data is four‐week ending. If a cycle evolves faster within four weeks, the model would overestimate the duration and underestimate the amplitude of cycles. So the study serves as an upper bound of the reality. The second limitation is the number of regimes. More than three regimes studied in a Markov switching regression may cause a series of empirical issues. However, if we integrate several regimes into one regime, we will lose rich information about the competitiveness of the markets.Practical implicationsThis paper is the first work to apply the dynamic pricing analysis to food industry by using fluid milk market as a case study. This paper empirically identifies four retail pricing regimes in fluid milk price series and evaluates the characteristics of the regimes.Social implicationsThis paper assesses the welfare implications of each pricing regime. The results show that the forecasting power of the model is strong in fluid milk retail market. Therefore, the study could serve as a price monitor to the public policymaker.Originality/valueThis paper presents the first study to apply dynamic oligopolistic competition model to food marketing research.

Dynamic oligopolistic competition on an electric power network with ramping costs and joint sales constraints

Most previous Cournot-Nash models of competition among electricity generators have assumed a static perspective, resulting in finite dimensional variational and quasi-variational inequality formulations. However, these models' system costs and constraints fail to capture the dynamic nature of power networks. In this paper we propose a more general and complete model of Cournot-Nash competition on power networks that accounts for these features by including ($i$) explicit intra-day dynamics that describe the market's evolution from one Generalized Cournot-Nash Equilibrium to another for a 24 hour planning horizon, ($ii$) ramping constraints and costs for changing the power output of generators, and ($ iii $) joint constraints that include variables from other generating companies within the profit maximization problems for individual generators. These joint constraints yield a generalized Nash equilibrium problem which can be represented as a differential quasi-variational inequality (DQVI); such generalized Nash equlibrium problems can have multiple solutions. The resulting formulation poses computational challenges that can cause traditional algorithms for DVIs to fail. A restricted formulation is proposed that can be solved by an implicit fixed point algorithm. A numerical example is provided.

Long‐run price competition

We generalize the standard repeated‐games model of dynamic oligopolistic competition to allow for consumers who are long‐lived and forward looking. Each period leaves some residual demand to future periods and pricing in one period affects consumers' expectations about future prices. We analyze this setting for an indivisible durable good with price‐setting firms and overlapping cohorts of consumers. The model nests the repeated‐game model and the Coasian durable‐goods model as its two extreme cases. The analysis is mostly focused on constant‐price collusion but conditions for collusive recurrent sales are also identified.

OPEN-LOOP AND CLOSED-LOOP MODELS OF DYNAMIC OLIGOPOLY IN THE CRUISE LINE INDUSTRY

In this paper, the competition of dynamic oligopoly in the cruise line industry is modeled as an N-person nonzero-sum noncooperative dynamic game where a finite number of cruise lines compete to maximize their profits over a fixed planning horizon. The noncooperative Nash equilibrium capacity investment strategies of cruise lines are theoretically analyzed under the open-loop and closed-loop information structures. The optimality conditions for open-loop and closed-loop Nash equilibrium solutions are derived using a Pontryagin-type maximum principle and given economic interpretations so as to demonstrate the differences between the open-loop and closed-loop Nash equilibrium solutions. The dynamic oligopolistic competition of three cruise lines in a hypothetical setting is numerically analyzed by using the iterative algorithms for open-loop and closed-loop models. Numerical results provide a number of important managerial guidelines for cruise capacity investment decisions. The paper concludes with a discussion on future research directions.

A dynamic game model of strategic capacity investment in the cruise line industry

In this paper, the cruise line industry is characterized as an oligopoly where a finite number of cruise lines compete to maximize their profits over a fixed planning horizon. The oligopolistic competition is modeled as a N-person nonzero-sum noncooperative dynamic game. The noncooperative Nash equilibrium capacity investment strategies of cruise lines are theoretically analyzed under the open-loop information structure. The necessary conditions for an open-loop Nash equilibrium solution are derived using a Pontryagin-type maximum principle and the sufficient conditions are also established. The economic interpretation of the optimality conditions is given so as to demonstrate the difference between the static and dynamic oligopoly problems. The dynamic oligopolistic competition of three cruise lines in a hypothetical setting is also numerically analyzed by using the iterative algorithm. Numerical results provide a number of important managerial guidelines for cruise capacity investment decisions. The paper concludes with a discussion on future research directions.

A Dynamic Spatial Cournot-Nash Equilibrium Model and an Algorithm

The objective of this paper is to develop a quantitative methodology for the study of dynamic oligopolistic competition among spatially separated firms serving spatially separated markets. The problem is modeled as a N-person nonzero-sum differential game in the open-loop and closed-loop strategy spaces. Optimality conditions are derived and provided with economic interpretations. Iterative algorithms and numerical results are presented for the open-loop and closed-loop models.

A Dynamic Theory of Conjectural Variations

This paper explores the relationship between dynamic oligopolistic competition and static conjectural variations equilibria. Using an infinite horizon adjustment cost model, the author demonstrates that any steady state closed-loop (subgame-perfect) equilibrium coincides with a conjectural variations equilibrium. In the case of linear demand and quadratic costs, the dynamic conjectures consistent with closed-loop steady state equilibria are negative, constant, symmetric, and vary continuously with the discount rate (and the adjustment cost parameter) in an interval between the static consistent conjectures and zero (Cournot). Copyright 1992 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

On the relation between dynamic oligopolistic competition and long-run competitive equilibrimn

In this paper we consider a dynamic oligopolistic model where the demand curve is described by a first—order differential equation which relates at each point in time the price of the commodity, the rate of change of the price, and the outputs of all firms in the market. The linear dynamic demand equation is considered as a first—order price adjustment mechanism. Open—loop, feedback and closed—loop Nash equilibria are derived. The corresponding stationary solutions are compared to the static Cournot equilibrium price and the competitive equilibrium price. It is demonstrated that for the “limiting game” (when the constant speed of adjustment reaches infinity) only the stationary open—loop price converges to the static Cournot price. The stationary feedback and a particular closed—loop solution converge to a price which is below the static Cournot price. For the limiting game when the number of firms goes to infinity the Nash equilibrium prices (independent of the information structure assumed) converge to the long—run competitive equilibrium.