Narrow Results

In the case of natural duopoly, we suggest a finitely repeated game between two incumbent firms and a potential entrant that limits the incumbent firms' power and compels them to approach economic efficiency. We prove that such a game admits a perfect subgame equilibrium along which the incumbent firms maintain with equal quantities while preventing entry. Moreover, the incumbents' strategies along this path converge to average cost pricing quantities as the number of periods goes to infinity.

Stackelberg-like games show a situation where there is a clear advantage in moving first. In a thought provoking article, Bagwell [1995] shows that this advantage may not be robust against imperfect observations of the first move. We explore these ideas in the context of forward induction in three classic games, namely, the outside option game, the game of burning a dollar before the battle of the sexes and the beer-quiche game.