IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2509.01263.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Herding Prices: Social Learning and Dynamic Competition in Duopoly

Author

Listed:
  • Georgy Lukyanov
  • Ariza Azova

Abstract

We embed observational learning (BHW) in a symmetric duopoly with random arrivals and search frictions. With fixed posted prices, a mixed-strategy pricing equilibrium exists and yields price dispersion even with ex-ante identical firms. We provide closed-form cascade bands and show wrong cascades occur with positive probability for interior parameters, vanishing as signals become precise or search costs fall; absorption probabilities are invariant to the arrival rate. In equilibrium, the support of mixed prices is connected and overlapping; its width shrinks with signal precision and expands with search costs, and mean prices comove accordingly. Under Calvo price resets (Poisson opportunities), stationary dispersion and mean prices fall; when signals are sufficiently informative, wrong-cascade risk also declines. On welfare, a state-contingent Pigouvian search subsidy implements the planner's cutoff. Prominence (biased first visits) softens competition and depresses welfare; neutral prominence is ex-ante optimal.

Suggested Citation

  • Georgy Lukyanov & Ariza Azova, 2025. "Herding Prices: Social Learning and Dynamic Competition in Duopoly," Papers 2509.01263, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2509.01263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.01263
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    2. Georgy Lukyanov, 2025. "Social Learning from Experts with Uncertain Precision," Papers 2509.01264, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    3. Georgy Lukyanov & Konstantin Popov & Shubh Lashkery, 2025. "Self-Employment as a Signal: Career Concerns with Hidden Firm Performance," Papers 2509.01265, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    4. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    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. Mark Armstrong, 2017. "Ordered Consumer Search," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(5), pages 989-1024.
    2. Nathalie Moureau & Dorothée Rivaud Danset, 2004. "L'incertitude dans les théories économiques," Post-Print hal-03995208, HAL.
    3. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    4. Gu, Chen & Guo, Xu & Zhang, Chengping, 2022. "Analyst target price revisions and institutional herding," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    5. Ruomeng Cui & Dennis J. Zhang & Achal Bassamboo, 2019. "Learning from Inventory Availability Information: Evidence from Field Experiments on Amazon," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1216-1235, March.
    6. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    7. Atabek Atayev, 2021. "Nonlinear Prices, Homogeneous Goods, Search," Papers 2109.15198, arXiv.org.
    8. Cao, Melanie & Shi, Shouyong, 2006. "Signaling in the Internet craze of initial public offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 818-833, September.
    9. Wei He & Qian Wang, 2020. "The peer effect of corporate financial decisions around split share structure reform in China," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 474-493, July.
    10. Kraemer, Carlo & Noth, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2006. "Information aggregation with costly information and random ordering: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 423-432, March.
    11. 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.
    12. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:5:y:2008:i:7:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    14. Arbatskaya, Maria & Konishi, Hideo, 2012. "Referrals in search markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 89-101.
    15. Montag, Felix & Mamrak, Robin & Sagimuldina, Alina & Schnitzer, Monika, 2023. "Imperfect price information, market power, and tax pass-through," Working Papers 337, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    16. Cavatorta, Elisa & Guarino, Antonio & Huck, Steffen, 2024. "Social learning with partial and aggregate information: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 292-307.
    17. Edgardo Arturo Ayala Gaytán, 2009. "Social network externalities and price dispersion in online markets," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 1-28, November.
    18. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Conformity in the lab," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 15-28, July.
    19. Buechel, Berno & Hellmann, Tim & Klößner, Stefan, 2015. "Opinion dynamics and wisdom under conformity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 240-257.
    20. Boğaçhan Çelen & Kyle Hyndman, 2012. "An experiment of social learning with endogenous timing," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(2), pages 251-268, September.
    21. Hiroshi Kitamura, 2007. "Capacity Expansion in Markets with Intertemporal Consumption Externalities," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 07-11, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2509.01263. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.