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Strategic complementarities and search market equilibrium

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  • Rauh, Michael T.

Abstract

In this paper, we apply supermodular game theory to the equilibrium search literature with sequential search. We identify necessary and sufficient conditions for the pricing game to exhibit strategic complementarities and prove existence of equilibrium. We then show that price dispersion is inherently incompatible with strategic complementarities in the sense that the Diamond Paradox obtains when firms are identical and is robust within the class of search cost densities that are small near zero and support strategic complementarities. We also show that a major criticism of the literature, that agents act as if they know the distribution of prices, can be justified in the sense of convergent best response dynamics.

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  • Rauh, Michael T., 2009. "Strategic complementarities and search market equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 959-978, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:66:y:2009:i:2:p:959-978
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    Cited by:

    1. Maris Goldmanis & Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson & Önsel Emre, 2010. "E-Commerce and the Market Structure of Retail Industries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(545), pages 651-682, June.
    2. Moraga-González, José L. & Sándor, Zsolt & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2014. "Prices, Product Differentiation, And Heterogeneous Search Costs," IESE Research Papers D/1097, IESE Business School.
    3. José Luis Moraga-González & Zsolt Sándor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2017. "Prices and heterogeneous search costs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(1), pages 125-146, March.
    4. Qiao, Lei & Yu, Haomiao & Zhang, Zhixiang, 2016. "On the closed-graph property of the Nash equilibrium correspondence in a large game: A complete characterization," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 89-98.
    5. Fu, Haifeng & Yu, Haomiao, 2015. "Pareto-undominated and socially-maximal equilibria in non-atomic games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 7-15.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Diamond Paradox Price dispersion Search Strategic complementarities;

    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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