IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v63y2008i1p1-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

24. Pricing in Bertrand competition with increasing marginal costs

Author

Listed:
  • Abbink, Klaus
  • Brandts, Jordi

Abstract

Bertrand competition under decreasing returns involves a wide interval of pure strategy Nash equilibrium prices. We first present results of experiments in which two, three and four identical firms repeatedly interact in this environment. More firms lead to lower average prices. However, prices remain substantially above the Walrasian level. With more than two firms the predominant market price is 24, a price not predicted by conventional equilibrium theories. This phenomenon can be captured by a simple imitation model and by a focal point explanation. For the long run, the model predicts that prices converge to the Walrasian outcome. We then use data from three new treatments to properly test the influence of imitation and focality. We find that both forces are present, but that imitation dominates in large markets with a long interaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Abbink, Klaus & Brandts, Jordi, 2008. "24. Pricing in Bertrand competition with increasing marginal costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-31, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:63:y:2008:i:1:p:1-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899-8256(07)00158-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morgan, John & Orzen, Henrik & Sefton, Martin, 2006. "An experimental study of price dispersion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 134-158, January.
    2. Apesteguia, Jose & Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jorg, 2007. "Imitation--theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 217-235, September.
    3. Theo Offerman & Jan Potters & Joep Sonnemans, 2002. "Imitation and Belief Learning in an Oligopoly Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 973-997.
    4. John C. Harsanyi & Reinhard Selten, 1988. "A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582384, April.
    5. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2000. "Does information about competitors' actions increase or decrease competition in experimental oligopoly markets?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 39-57, January.
    6. Dastidar, Krishnendu Ghosh, 1995. "On the Existence of Pure Strategy Bertrand Equilibrium," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(1), pages 19-32, January.
    7. Stegeman, Mark & Rhode, Paul, 2004. "Stochastic Darwinian equilibria in small and large populations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 171-214, October.
    8. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & van den Elzen, Antoon, 2002. "Computation of the Nash Equilibrium Selected by the Tracing Procedure in N-Person Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 89-117, January.
    9. Crawford, Vincent P, 1995. "Adaptive Dynamics in Coordination Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(1), pages 103-143, January.
    10. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gneezy, Uri, 2000. "Price competition and market concentration: an experimental study," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 7-22, January.
    11. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2004. "Two are few and four are many: number effects in experimental oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 435-446, April.
    12. Schlag, Karl H., 1998. "Why Imitate, and If So, How?, : A Boundedly Rational Approach to Multi-armed Bandits," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 130-156, January.
    13. Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Beil, Richard O, 1990. "Tacit Coordination Games, Strategic Uncertainty, and Coordination Failure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 234-248, March.
    14. Cooper, Russell, et al, 1990. "Selection Criteria in Coordination Games: Some Experimental Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 218-233, March.
    15. Alos-Ferrer, Carlos & Ania, Ana B. & Schenk-Hoppe, Klaus Reiner, 2000. "An Evolutionary Model of Bertrand Oligopoly," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 1-19, October.
    16. Reinhard Selten & Klaus Abbink & Ricarda Cox, 2005. "Learning Direction Theory and the Winner’s Curse," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(1), pages 5-20, April.
    17. Antoni Bosch-DomËnech & Nicolaas J. Vriend, 2003. "Imitation of successful behaviour in cournot markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(487), pages 495-524, April.
    18. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 1999. "Learning in Cournot Oligopoly--An Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(454), pages 80-95, March.
    19. Robin P. Cubitt & Robert Sugden, 1998. "The Selection of Preferences Through Imitation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(4), pages 761-771.
    20. Roth, Alvin E. & Erev, Ido, 1995. "Learning in extensive-form games: Experimental data and simple dynamic models in the intermediate term," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 164-212.
    21. Brown-Kruse, Jamie, et al, 1994. "Bertrand-Edgeworth Competition in Experimental Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 343-372, March.
    22. Selten, Reinhard & Apesteguia, Jose, 2005. "Experimentally observed imitation and cooperation in price competition on the circle," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 171-192, April.
    23. Fernando Vega-Redondo, 1997. "The Evolution of Walrasian Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(2), pages 375-384, March.
    24. Brandts, Jordi & Holt, Charles A, 1992. "An Experimental Test of Equilibrium Dominance in Signaling Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1350-1365, December.
    25. Fernando Vega-Redondo, 1999. "Markets under bounded rationality: from theory to facts," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 23(1), pages 3-26, January.
    26. Douglas D. Davis & Charles A. Holt, 1994. "Market Power and Mergers in Laboratory Markets with Posted Prices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(3), pages 467-487, Autumn.
    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. Klaus Abbink & Jordi Brandts, 2002. "24," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 523.02, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
      • Jordi Brandts & Klaus Abbink, 2004. "24," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000073, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2013. "Oligopoly Experiments In The Current Millennium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 439-460, July.
    3. Selten, Reinhard & Apesteguia, Jose, 2005. "Experimentally observed imitation and cooperation in price competition on the circle," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 171-192, April.
    4. Klaus Abbink & Jordi Brandts, 2005. "Price Competition Under Cost Uncertainty: A Laboratory Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(3), pages 636-648, July.
    5. Nikiforakis, Nikos, 2010. "Feedback, punishment and cooperation in public good experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 689-702, March.
    6. Apesteguia, Jose & Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jorg, 2007. "Imitation--theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 217-235, September.
    7. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Ritschel, Alexander, 2021. "Multiple behavioral rules in Cournot oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 250-267.
    8. repec:awi:wpaper:0461 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Jonas Hedlund, 2015. "Imitation in Cournot oligopolies with multiple markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(3), pages 567-587, November.
    10. Khan, Abhimanyu & Peeters, Ronald, 2015. "Imitation by price and quantity setting firms in a differentiated market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 28-36.
    11. Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Johannes Buckenmaier & Georg Kirchsteiger, 2022. "Do traders learn to select efficient market institutions?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 203-228, February.
    12. Apesteguia, Jose & Huck, Steffen & Oechssler, Jörg & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2010. "Imitation and the evolution of Walrasian behavior: Theoretically fragile but behaviorally robust," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1603-1617, September.
    13. Bigoni, M. & Suetens, S., 2010. "Ignorance is not always Bliss : Feedback and Dynamics in Public Good Experiments," Discussion Paper 2010-64, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    14. Mark Armstrong & Steffen Huck, 2010. "Behavioral Economics as Applied to Firms: A Primer," CESifo Working Paper Series 2937, CESifo.
    15. Friedman, Daniel & Huck, Steffen & Oprea, Ryan & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2015. "From imitation to collusion: Long-run learning in a low-information environment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 185-205.
    16. Paolo Crosetto & Alexia Gaudeul, 2017. "Choosing not to compete: Can firms maintain high prices by confusing consumers?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 897-922, December.
    17. Offerman, Theo & Schotter, Andrew, 2009. "Imitation and luck: An experimental study on social sampling," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 461-502, March.
    18. Andreas Nicklisch, 2012. "Does collusive advertising facilitate collusive pricing? Evidence from experimental duopolies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 515-532, December.
    19. Argenton, Cédric & Müller, Wieland, 2012. "Collusion in experimental Bertrand duopolies with convex costs: The role of cost asymmetry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 508-517.
    20. Bigoni, Maria & Suetens, Sigrid, 2012. "Feedback and dynamics in public good experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 86-95.
    21. Bigoni, Maria & Fort, Margherita, 2013. "Information and learning in oligopoly: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 192-214.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • 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
    • 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:gamebe:v:63:y:2008:i:1:p:1-31. 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/inca/622836 .

    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.