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Evolutionary Stability in Asymmetric Oligopoly. A Non-Walrasian Result

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  • Leininger, Wolfgang
  • Moghadam, Hamed M.

Abstract

It is a very well-known result that in terms of evolutionary stability the long-run outcome of a Cournot oligopoly market with finitely many firms approaches the perfectly competitive Walrasian market outcome (Vega-Redondo, 1997). However, in this paper we show that an asymmetric structure in the cost functions of firms may change the long-run outcome. Contrary to Tanaka (1999) we show that the evolutionarily stable price in an asymmetric Cournot oligopoly needs not equal the marginal cost, it may rather equal a weighted average of (different) marginal cost. We apply a symmetrization technique in order to transform the game with asymmetric firms into a symmetric oligopoly game and then extend Schaffer's definition (1988) of a finite population ESS (FPESS) to this setup. Moreover, we show that the FPESS in this game represents a stochastically stable state of an evolutionary process of imitation with experimentation.

Suggested Citation

  • Leininger, Wolfgang & Moghadam, Hamed M., 2014. "Evolutionary Stability in Asymmetric Oligopoly. A Non-Walrasian Result," Ruhr Economic Papers 497, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:497
    DOI: 10.4419/86788570
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Kandori Michihiro & Rob Rafael, 1995. "Evolution of Equilibria in the Long Run: A General Theory and Applications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 383-414, April.
    2. Hehenkamp, Burkhard & Possajennikov, Alex & Guse, Tobias, 2010. "On the equivalence of Nash and evolutionary equilibrium in finite populations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 254-258, February.
    3. Ania, Ana B., 2008. "Evolutionary stability and Nash equilibrium in finite populations, with an application to price competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 472-488, March.
    4. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Fei Shi, 2012. "Imitation with asymmetric memory," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(1), pages 193-215, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hamed Markazi Moghadam, 2020. "Price and non-price competition in an oligopoly: an analysis of relative payoff maximizers," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 507-521, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cournot oligopoly; asymmetry; finite population evolutionary stable strategy; stochastic stability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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