IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/man/sespap/0911.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bilateral oligopoly and quantity competition

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Dickson
  • Roger Hartley

Abstract

Bilateral oligopoly is a market game with two commodities, allowing strategic behavior on both sides of the market. When the number of buyers is large, bilateral oligopoly approximates a game of quantity competition played by sellers. We present examples which show that this is not typically a Cournot game. Rather, we introduce an alternative game of quantity competition (the market share game) and, appealing to results in the literature on contests, show that this yields the same equilibria as the many-buyer limit of bilateral oligopoly, under standard assumptions on costs and preferences. We also show that the market share and Cournot games have the same equilibria if and only if the price elasticity of the latter is one and investigate the differences in equilibria otherwise. These results lead to necessary and sufficient conditions for the Cournot game to be a good approximation to bilateral oligopoly with many buyers and to an ordering of total output when they are not satisfied. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2013
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Dickson & Roger Hartley, 2009. "Bilateral oligopoly and quantity competition," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0911, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:man:sespap:0911
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/soss/economics/discussionpapers/EDP-0911.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaskold Gabszewicz, Jean & Vial, Jean-Philippe, 1972. "Oligopoly "A la cournot" in a general equilibrium analysis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 381-400, June.
    2. William Novshek, 1985. "On the Existence of Cournot Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 85-98.
    3. Codognato, Giulio, 1995. "Cournot-Walras and Cournot Equilibria in Mixed Markets: A Comparison," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(2), pages 361-370, March.
    4. Szidarovszky, F & Yakowitz, S, 1977. "A New Proof of the Existence and Uniqueness of the Cournot Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 18(3), pages 787-789, October.
    5. Shapley, Lloyd S & Shubik, Martin, 1977. "Trade Using One Commodity as a Means of Payment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(5), pages 937-968, October.
    6. Codognato, G., 1995. "Cournot-Walras and Cournot equilibria in mixed markets: A comparison," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1134, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    7. Richard Cornes & Roger Hartley, 2005. "Asymmetric contests with general technologies," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(4), pages 923-946, November.
    8. Stein, William E, 2002. "Asymmetric Rent-Seeking with More Than Two Contestants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 325-336, December.
    9. Dickson, Alex & Hartley, Roger, 2008. "The strategic Marshallian cross," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 514-532, November.
    10. Busetto, Francesca & Codognato, Giulio & Ghosal, Syantan, 2008. "Cournot-Walras Equilibrium as a Subgame Perfect Equilibrium," Economic Research Papers 269786, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    11. Xavier Vives, 2001. "Oligopoly Pricing: Old Ideas and New Tools," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026272040x, April.
    12. GABSZEWICZ, Jean & MICHEL, Philippe, 1992. "Oligopoly equilibria in exchange economies," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 1992047, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    13. B. C. Eaton & Richard G. Harris (ed.), 1997. "Trade, Technology and Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1020.
    14. R Cornes & R Hartley, 2005. "The Geometry of Aggregative Games," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0514, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    15. Szidarovszky, Ferenc & Okuguchi, Koji, 1997. "On the Existence and Uniqueness of Pure Nash Equilibrium in Rent-Seeking Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 135-140, January.
    16. Giraud, Gael, 2003. "Strategic market games: an introduction," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(5-6), pages 355-375, July.
    17. David M. Kreps & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1983. "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 326-337, Autumn.
    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. Roy H Grieve, 2013. "An issue with own-rates: Keynes borrows from Sraffa , Sraffa criticises Keynes, and present-day commentators get hold of the wrong end of the stick," Working Papers 1319, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    2. Richard Cornes & Roger Hartley & Yuji Tamura, 2019. "Two‐Aggregate Games: Demonstration Using a Production–Appropriation Model," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(1), pages 353-378, January.
    3. Ludovic A. Julien, 2015. "A note on market power in bilateral oligopoly," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(1), pages 400-406.
    4. Cont, Walter & Porto, Guido, 2014. "Measuring the impact of a change in the price of Cashew received by exporters on farmgate prices and poverty in Guinea-Bissau," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7036, The World Bank.
    5. Alex Dickson, 2013. "On Cobb-Douglas Preferences in Bilateral Oligopoly," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 79(4), pages 89-110.
    6. Makoto Yano & Takashi Komatsubara, 2018. "Price competition or price leadership," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(4), pages 1023-1057, December.
    7. Yamaura Koichi & Xia Tian, 2016. "Measuring Bilateral Market Power in International Markets of Vertically Differentiated Agricultural Commodities," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 33-42, May.
    8. Ludovic A. Julien & Anicet Kabre & Louis de Mesnard, 2022. "Pollution in strategic multilateral exchange: taxing emissions or trading on permit markets?," Post-Print hal-03791673, HAL.

    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. Ludovic A. Julien & Fabrice Tricou, 2008. "Market Price Mechanisms and Stackelberg General Equilibria," Working Papers hal-04140726, HAL.
    2. Alex Dickson & Simone Tonin, 2021. "An introduction to perfect and imperfect competition via bilateral oligopoly," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 103-128, July.
    3. Busetto, Francesca & Codognato, Giulio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2011. "Noncooperative oligopoly in markets with a continuum of traders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 38-45, May.
    4. Dickson, Alex & Hartley, Roger, 2008. "The strategic Marshallian cross," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 514-532, November.
    5. Busetto, Francesca & Codognato, Giulio & Ghosal, Syantan, 2008. "Cournot-Walras Equilibrium as a Subgame Perfect Equilibrium," Economic Research Papers 269786, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    6. A. Dickson & R. Hartley, 2005. "The strategic Marshallian cross and bilateral oligopoly," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0523, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    7. Busetto, Francesca & Codognato, Giulio & Julien, Ludovic, 2020. "Atomic Leontievian Cournotian traders are always Walrasian," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 318-327.
    8. Ludovic A. Julien, 2024. "Noncooperative oligopoly equilibrium in markets with hierarchical competition," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 53(2), pages 325-371, June.
    9. Francesca Busetto & Giulio Codognato & Sayantan Ghosal & Ludovic Julien & Simone Tonin, 2020. "Existence and optimality of Cournot–Nash equilibria in a bilateral oligopoly with atoms and an atomless part," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(4), pages 933-951, December.
    10. Alex Dickson, 2013. "The Effects of Entry in Bilateral Oligopoly," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-21, June.
    11. Francesca Busetto & Giulio Codognato & Sayantan Ghosal, "undated". "Noncooperative oligopoly in markets with a continuum of traders: a limit theorem a la Cournot," Working Papers 2014_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    12. Alex Dickson, 2017. "Multiple-aggregate games," Working Papers 1701, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    13. Busetto, Francesca & Codognato, Giulio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2014. "Noncooperative Oligopoly in Markets with a Continuum of Traders: A Limit Theorem µa la Cournot," SIRE Discussion Papers 2014-019, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    14. Ludovic A. Julien, 2017. "Hierarchical Competition and Heterogeneous Behavior in Noncooperative Oligopoly Markets," Post-Print hal-01637298, HAL.
    15. Magnus Hoffmann & Grégoire Rota‐Graziosi, 2020. "Endogenous timing in the presence of non‐monotonicities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 359-402, February.
    16. Busetto, Francesca & Codognato, Giulio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2012. "Noncooperative Oligopoly in Markets with a Continuum of Traders: A Limit Theorem," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 994, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    17. M. Lombardi & S. Tonin, 2020. "On trade in bilateral oligopolies with altruistic and spiteful agents," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 203-218, October.
    18. Julien, Ludovic A., 2013. "On Stackelberg competition in strategic multilateral exchange," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 59-75.
    19. Alex Dickson, 2013. "On Cobb-Douglas Preferences in Bilateral Oligopoly," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 79(4), pages 89-110.
    20. Julien, Ludovic A., 2011. "Unemployment equilibrium and economic policy in mixed markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 1931-1940, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    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:man:sespap:0911. 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: Marianne Sensier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.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.