Narrow Results

This paper studies the evolution of a fish stock that is exploited by an n-country oligopoly. A feature of the economic structure is that the countries exploiting the fish stock experience time lags in obtaining and implementing information on the fish stock. The local asymptotic behavior of the equilibrium is analyzed, including asymptotic stability, instability, and cyclical behavior. Under the assumption of symmetric countries, two special cases are examined in detail. In the first case identical time delays are assumed, and in the second case it is assumed that one country has a different time delay from the others. This semi-symmetric case gives some insight into the consequence of asymmetry of the countries on the asymptotic behavior of the fish stock.

We consider a repeated regulation model in an oligopoly under asymmetric information with pollution. An iterative procedure is proposed where the regulator designs stationary taxes, and firms are not required to be perfectly rational. They can form and update simple beliefs about their competitors' aggregate output at each period. Two versions of the mechanism are provided depending on whether firms behave adaptively or with perfect foresight. Conditions under which the procedure converges to a unique steady state are provided. It is proved that there exists a suitable stationary tax policy that enables the firms to adjust to socially optimal choices in the long run. The tax rates of both versions are typically strictly less than the ones that result from a full information, Nash implementation. Moreover, in the myopic case, the tax rate decreases as the number of firms increases. We discuss problems relating to the potential implementation of the procedure.

The effects of uniting separated markets, each monopolized by a producer, into a globalized oligopolistic market, which is regarded as a noncooperative game, or as a Cournot oligopoly game, are investigated. The cases where such globalization degrades the profits of all producers coincidently, are examined. Linear demand and production functions are considered. It is shown that in complete symmetry, the degree of such coincident profit degradation is strongest (the worst-case ratio), where the degree means the most modest ratio of the profit degradation among all producers. The system is in complete symmetry when the values of parameters describing all producers and markets are identical. On the other hand, in producer symmetry, the degree of coincident consumer surplus improvement is highest (the best-case ratio), where the degree means the lowest of the ratios of consumer surplus improvement among all (previously separated) markets. The system is in producer symmetry when the values of parameters describing all producers are identical.

The model proposed in this paper investigates a differential Cournot oligopoly game with nonrenewable resource exploitation, in which each firm may exploit either its own private pool or a common pool jointly with the rivals. Firms use a deterministic technology to invest in exploration activities. There emerges that (i) the individual exploration effort is higher when each firms has exclusive rights on a pool of its own, and (ii) depending on whether each firm has access to its own pool or all firms exploit a common one, the aggregate exploration effort is either increasing or constant in the number of firms.

This paper considers the problem of searching for information equilibria in an oligopoly market in the case of Stackelberg leaders. A framework considers the reflexive behavior of three agents, and linear agent’s cost functions with different coefficients (i.e., marginal and fixed costs) are considered. The results of the study are as follows. First, models of the reflexive games for a triopoly that consider a diversity of agents’ reasonings about environmental strategies are developed. Second, formulas for calculating equilibria in the games with three agents for arbitrary reflexion rank are derived.

When an outside innovating firm has a cost-reducing technology, it can sell licenses of its technology to incumbent firms, or enter the market and at the same time sell licenses, or enter the market without license. We examine the definitions of license fees in such situations under oligopoly, one outside innovating firm and several incumbent firms, considering threat by entry by the innovating firm using a two-step auction.