IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_7476.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Induced Price Leadership and (Counter-)Spying Rivals' Play under Incomplete Information

Author

Listed:
  • Cuihong Fan
  • Byoung Heon Jun
  • Elmar G. Wolfstetter

Abstract

We analyze spying out a rival’s price in a Bertrand market game with incomplete information. Spying transforms a simultaneous into a robust sequential moves game. We provide conditions for profitable espionage. The spied at firm may attempt to immunize against spying by delaying its pricing decision if its cost is low. This, however, adversely affects beliefs and becomes self-defeating. The spy may also be a counterspy or be fooled to report strategically distorted information. This gives rise to an intriguing signaling problem that admits only partially separating equilibria. Surprisingly, counter-espionage may aggravate the price leadership induced by spying. Altogether, our analysis offers an explanation and generalization of robust Stackelberg-Bertrand games.

Suggested Citation

  • Cuihong Fan & Byoung Heon Jun & Elmar G. Wolfstetter, 2019. "Induced Price Leadership and (Counter-)Spying Rivals' Play under Incomplete Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 7476, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7476
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7476.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amir, Rabah & Stepanova, Anna, 2006. "Second-mover advantage and price leadership in Bertrand duopoly," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 1-20, April.
    2. Hamilton, Jonathan H. & Slutsky, Steven M., 1990. "Endogenous timing in duopoly games: Stackelberg or cournot equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 29-46, March.
    3. Bagwell, Kyle, 1995. "Commitment and observability in games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 271-280.
    4. van Damme, Eric & Hurkens, Sjaak, 1996. "Commitment Robust Equilibria and Endogenous Timing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 290-311, August.
    5. Gal-Or, Esther, 1985. "First Mover and Second Mover Advantages," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(3), pages 649-653, October.
    6. van Damme, Eric & Hurkens, Sjaak, 2004. "Endogenous price leadership," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 404-420, May.
    7. Van Zandt, Timothy & Vives, Xavier, 2007. "Monotone equilibria in Bayesian games of strategic complementarities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 339-360, May.
    8. Merrill Whitney & James Gaisford, 1999. "An Inquiry Into the Rationale for Economic Espionage," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 103-123.
    9. Giovanni Maggi, 1999. "The Value of Commitment with Imperfect Observability and Private Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 555-574, Winter.
    10. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    11. Mouraviev, Igor & Rey, Patrick, 2011. "Collusion and leadership," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 705-717.
    12. Cho, In-Koo & Sobel, Joel, 1990. "Strategic stability and uniqueness in signaling games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 381-413, April.
    13. Solan, Eilon & Yariv, Leeat, 2004. "Games with espionage," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 172-199, April.
    14. Konrad Podczeck, 2009. "On purification of measure-valued maps," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(2), pages 399-418, February.
    15. John Morgan & Felix Várdy, 2013. "The Fragility of Commitment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1344-1353, June.
    16. Barrachina, Alex & Tauman, Yair & Urbano, Amparo, 2014. "Entry and espionage with noisy signals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 127-146.
    17. Guth, Werner & Muller, Wieland & Spiegel, Yossi, 2006. "Noisy leadership: An experimental approach," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 37-62, October.
    18. Paul R. Milgrom & Robert J. Weber, 1985. "Distributional Strategies for Games with Incomplete Information," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 10(4), pages 619-632, November.
    19. Kyung Hwan Baik & Shogren, Jason F., 1995. "Contests with spying," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 441-451, September.
    20. Mailath George J. & Okuno-Fujiwara Masahiro & Postlewaite Andrew, 1993. "Belief-Based Refinements in Signalling Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 241-276, August.
    21. Matsui, Akihiko, 1989. "Information leakage forces cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 94-115, March.
    22. Amir, Rabah & Grilo, Isabel, 1999. "Stackelberg versus Cournot Equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-21, January.
    23. S. Ho, 2008. "Extracting the information: espionage with double crossing," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 31-58, February.
    24. Steve Dowrick, 1986. "von Stackelberg and Cournot Duopoly: Choosing Roles," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(2), pages 251-260, Summer.
    25. Athey, Susan, 2001. "Single Crossing Properties and the Existence of Pure Strategy Equilibria in Games of Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 861-889, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alex Barrachina & Yair Tauman & Amparo Urbano, 2021. "Entry with two correlated signals: the case of industrial espionage and its positive competitive effects," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 50(1), pages 241-278, March.

    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. Fan, Cuihong & Jun, Byoung Heon & Wolfstetter, Elmar G., 2022. "Spying in Bertrand markets under incomplete information: Who benefits and is it stable?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Cuihong Fan & Byoung Heon Jun & Elmar G. Wolfstetter, 2023. "Price leadership, spying, and secret price changes: a Stackelberg game with imperfect commitment," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(3), pages 775-804, September.
    3. Matsui, Kenji, 2016. "Asymmetric product distribution between symmetric manufacturers using dual-channel supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 646-657.
    4. Arozamena, Leandro & Weinschelbaum, Federico, 2009. "Simultaneous vs. sequential price competition with incomplete information," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 23-26, July.
    5. Matsui, Kenji, 2017. "When should a manufacturer set its direct price and wholesale price in dual-channel supply chains?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(2), pages 501-511.
    6. Kempf, Hubert & Rota-Graziosi, Grégoire, 2010. "Endogenizing leadership in tax competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 768-776, October.
    7. Chen, Jing & Chen, Bintong & Li, Wei, 2018. "Who should be pricing leader in the presence of customer returns?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(2), pages 735-747.
    8. Madden, Paul & Pezzino, Mario, 2019. "Endogenous price leadership with an essential input," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 47-59.
    9. Michael Kopel & Clemens Löffler, 2008. "Commitment, first-mover-, and second-mover advantage," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 94(2), pages 143-166, July.
    10. Amir, Rabah & Stepanova, Anna, 2006. "Second-mover advantage and price leadership in Bertrand duopoly," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 1-20, April.
    11. Hubert Kempf & Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2010. "Leadership in Public Good Provision: A Timing Game Perspective," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(4), pages 763-787, August.
    12. S.N. O'Higgins & Arturo Palomba & Patrizia Sbriglia, 2010. "Second Mover Advantage and Bertrand Dynamic Competition: An Experiment," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 028, University of Siena.
    13. Jonas Send, 2021. "Contest Copycats: Adversarial Duplication of Effort in Contests," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2021-17, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    14. Hubert Kempf & Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, 2010. "Endogenizing leadership in the tax competition race," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00492105, HAL.
    15. Kosuke Hirose & Sang-ho Lee & Toshihiro Matsumura, 2017. "Environmental corporate social responsibility : A note on the first-mover advantage under price competition," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 214-221.
    16. Hoffmann, Magnus & Rota-Graziosi, Grégoire, 2012. "Endogenous timing in general rent-seeking and conflict models," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 168-184.
    17. von Stengel, Bernhard, 2010. "Follower payoffs in symmetric duopoly games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 512-516, July.
    18. Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI & Hubert KEMPF, 2009. "Leading and losing the tax competition race," Working Papers 200921, CERDI.
    19. Cumbul, Eray, 2021. "Stackelberg versus Cournot oligopoly with private information," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Grégoire Rota-Graziosi & Hubert Kempf, 2011. "Leadership in Public Good Provision: a Timing Game Perspective," CERDI Working papers halshs-00556944, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    industrial espionage; price leadership; Stackelberg games; collusion; antitrust policy; incomplete information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:ces:ceswps:_7476. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.