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Survival at the Center - The Stability of Minimum Differentiation

Author

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  • Burkhard Hehenkamp

    (Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences - TU - Technische Universität Dortmund [Dortmund])

  • Achim Wambach

    (Department of Economics - University of Cologne)

Abstract

We model a Hotelling market with multidimensional product differentiation in an evolutionary framework. Both evolutionary stability (in the sense of Schaffer, 1989) and stochastic stability (following Kandori et al., 1993, and Young, 1993) are analysed. It is shown that firms move towards the center in product space, i.e. a "principle of minimum differentiation" on all dimensions of the product space applies.

Suggested Citation

  • Burkhard Hehenkamp & Achim Wambach, 2010. "Survival at the Center - The Stability of Minimum Differentiation," Post-Print hal-00911820, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00911820
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2010.09.018
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Abhimanyu Khan & Ronald Peeters, 2020. "Evolution of Behavior When Duopolists Choose Prices and Quantities," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 493-508, June.
    3. Khan, Abhimanyu & Peeters, Ronald, 2017. "Imitation and price competition in a differentiated market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 177-194.
    4. Buechel, Berno & Roehl, Nils, 2015. "Robust equilibria in location games," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(2), pages 505-517.
    5. Gu, Yiquan & Wenzel, Tobias, 2015. "Putting on a tight leash and levelling playing field: An experiment in strategic obfuscation and consumer protection," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 120-128.
    6. Bertrand Ottino-Loffler & Forrest Stonedahl & Vipin Veetil & Uri Wilensky, 2017. "Spatial Competition with Interacting Agents," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 10(3), pages 75-91.
    7. Yasuhiro Shirata, 2020. "Evolution of a Collusive Price in a Networked Market," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 528-554, June.
    8. Buechel, Berno & Klein, Jan, 2014. "Do Consumers' Preferences Really Matter? - A Note on Spatial Competition with Restricted Strategies," MPRA Paper 55288, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kevin Hasker, 2014. "The Emergent Seed: A Representation Theorem for Models of Stochastic Evolution and two formulas for Waiting Time," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000954, David K. Levine.
    10. Hehenkamp, Burkhard & Wambach, Achim, 2010. "Survival at the center--The stability of minimum differentiation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 853-858, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Shuaicheng Liu, 2023. "Location choice with asymmetric data in the Hotelling model," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 19(4), pages 855-878, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hotelling; evolutionary game theory; product differentiation; location choice; C73; L1; R3;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location

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