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Oblivious Equilibrium for Concentrated Industries

Author

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  • C. Lanier Benkard
  • Przemyslaw Jeziorski
  • Gabriel Y. Weintraub

Abstract

This paper explores the application of oblivious equilibrium to concentrated industries. We define an extended notion of oblivious equilibrium that we call partially oblivious equilibrium (POE) that allows for there to be a set of "dominant firms'', whose firm states are always monitored by every other firm in the market. We perform computational experiments that show that POE are often close to MPE in concentrated industries with characteristics similar to real world industries even when OE are not. We derive error bounds for evaluating the performance of POE when MPE cannot be computed. Finally, we demonstrate an important trade-off facing empirical researchers between implementing an equilibrium concept that is computationally light in a richer economic model, and implementing MPE in a simpler one.

Suggested Citation

  • C. Lanier Benkard & Przemyslaw Jeziorski & Gabriel Y. Weintraub, 2013. "Oblivious Equilibrium for Concentrated Industries," NBER Working Papers 19307, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19307
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Vivek Farias & Bar Ifrach & Gabriel Weintraub, 2012. "A Framework for Dynamic Oligopoly in Concentrated Industries," 2012 Meeting Papers 505, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Andrew Sweeting, 2015. "A Model of Non-Stationary Dynamic Price Competition with an Application to Platform Design," Working Papers 15-03, NET Institute.
    4. A. Ronald Gallant & Han Hong & Ahmed Khwaja, 2018. "The Dynamic Spillovers of Entry: An Application to the Generic Drug Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1189-1211, March.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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