IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v255y2025ics0165176525003660.html

An increase in a firm’s marginal cost can raise its profit

Author

Listed:
  • Cowan, Simon

Abstract

A firm in a Cournot industry can benefit from an increase in its marginal cost while its rivals’ costs are unchanged. This requires the firm’s profit margin to be increasing in its marginal cost and outputs to be strategic complements for the rivals. The margin increases if inverse demand curvature exceeds the number of firms. The main examples have demand functions with constant price elasticities below 1 and a duopoly.

Suggested Citation

  • Cowan, Simon, 2025. "An increase in a firm’s marginal cost can raise its profit," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:255:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525003660
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112529
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525003660
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112529?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Seade, Jesus K, 1980. "On the Effects of Entry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(2), pages 479-489, March.
    2. Rabah Amir & Val E. Lambson, 2000. "On the Effects of Entry in Cournot Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(2), pages 235-254.
    3. Seade, J, 1985. "Profitable Cost Increases and the Shifting of Taxation : Equilibrium Response of Markets in Oligopoly," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 260, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    4. Kimmel, Sheldon, 1992. "Effects of Cost Changes on Oligopolists' Profits," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 441-449, December.
    5. Schlee, Edward E., 1993. "A curvature condition ensuring uniqueness of Cournot equilibrium, with applications to comparative statics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 29-33.
    6. Simon Cowan, 2025. "Welfare‐Increasing Monopolization," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 167-185, March.
    7. Lahiri, Sajal & Ono, Yoshiyasu, 1988. "Helping Minor Firms Reduces Welfare," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(393), pages 1199-1202, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mishra, Suryaprakash, 2025. "Cost structures and innovation incentives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    2. Fevrier, Philippe & Linnemer, Laurent, 2004. "Idiosyncratic shocks in an asymmetric Cournot oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 835-848, June.
    3. Simon GB Cowan & Simon Cowan, 2004. "Demand shifts and imperfect competition," Economics Series Working Papers 188, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    4. Céline Azémar & Rodolphe Desbordes & Paolo Melindi‐Ghidi & Jean‐Philippe Nicolaï, 2022. "Winners and losers of the COVID‐19 pandemic: An excess profits tax proposal," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(5), pages 1016-1038, October.
    5. Chung, Hoe Sang, 2023. "Entry and consumer welfare in a differentiated Cournot oligopoly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    6. Jurgan, Jens, 2009. "Conjectural cost variations in a differentiated good oligopoly," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 80, University of Würzburg, Department of Economics.
    7. Rabah Amir & Isabelle Maret & Michael Troege, 2004. "On Taxation Pass-Through for a Monopoly Firm," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 75-76, pages 155-172.
    8. Jens Jurgan, 2009. "Cost Variations in a Differentiated Good Oligopoly," Working Papers 069, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    9. Krishnendu Ghosh Dastidar & Sugata Marjit, 2022. "Market size, entry costs and free entry Cournot equilibrium," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 97-114, July.
    10. Gama, Adriana & Rietzke, David, 2019. "Monotone comparative statics in games with non-monotonic best-replies: Contests and Cournot oligopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 823-841.
    11. Rabah Amir, 2005. "Supermodularity and Complementarity in Economics: An Elementary Survey," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(3), pages 636-660, January.
    12. Cameron Hepburn & John Quah & Robert Ritz, 2006. "Emissions Trading and Profit-Neutral Grandfathering," Economics Series Working Papers 295, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Lapan, Harvey E. & Hennessy, David A., 2008. "Statistical moments analysis of production and welfare in multi-product Cournot oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 598-606, March.
    14. E. Glen Weyl & Michal Fabinger, 2013. "Pass-Through as an Economic Tool: Principles of Incidence under Imperfect Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 528-583.
    15. Marco de Pinto & Laszlo Goerke & Alberto Palermo, 2024. "Informational rents and the excessive entry theorem: The case of hidden action," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 71(2), pages 237-252, May.
    16. Alex Dickson, 2013. "The Effects of Entry in Bilateral Oligopoly," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-21, June.
    17. Amir, Rabah & Jin, Jim Y. & Lasselle, Laurence, 2023. "Uniform, efficient and independent Ramsey taxes across markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 373-386.
    18. Namhoon Kwon, 2007. "Entry Invitations in a Market with Network Effects," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 49-59.
    19. Soumyananda Dinda & Arijit Mukherjee, 2014. "A Note on the Adverse Effect of Competition on Consumers," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 16(1), pages 157-163, February.
    20. Michele Santoni, 2017. "Protective Excise Taxation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 421-445, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:255:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525003660. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.