Stability of Equilibrium Prices in a Dynamic Duopoly Bertrand Game with Asymmetric Information and Cluster Spillovers

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (16) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianjun Long ◽  
Hua Zhao

Bounded rationality, asymmetric information and spillover effects are widespread in the economic market, and had been studied extensively in oligopoly games, but few references discussed incomplete information in a duopoly market with rationality expectations. Considering the positive externalities brought by the spillover effect between enterprises in a cluster, a duopoly Bertrand game with bounded rationality and asymmetric information is proposed in this paper. In our model, a firm with private information, high or low marginal cost, is introduced. Interestingly, our theoretical analysis reveals that: (1) In a dynamic duopoly Bertrand game with perfect rationality and asymmetric information, the equilibrium price is positively correlated with product substitution rate and the probability of a high marginal cost, while it is negatively correlated with the cluster spillover. (2) In a dynamic duopoly Bertrand game with asymmetric information and adaptive expectation adopted by both firms, the Nash equilibrium prices are always asymptotically stable. (3) In a dynamic duopoly Bertrand game with heterogenous expectation and asymmetric information, where two firms use adaptive expectation and boundedly rational expectation respectively, the Nash equilibrium prices are locally stable under certain conditions. Furthermore, results indicate that, high product substitution rate or large probability of high marginal cost for firm 2 with private information may make the market price unstable, bifurcating or even falling into chaos, while high technology spillover is conducive to stabilize the market by contrast. It is also shown that the chaos can be controlled by a hybrid control strategy with the state variables feedback and parameter variation. Our research has an important theoretical and practical significance to the price competition in oligopoly markets.

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 815-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qinglong Gou ◽  
Fangdi Deng ◽  
Yanyan He

Purpose Selective crowdsourcing is an important type of crowdsourcing which has been popularly used in practice. However, because selective crowdsourcing uses a winner-takes-all mechanism, implying that the efforts of most participants except the final winner will be just in vain. The purpose of this paper is to explore why this costly mechanism can become a popularity during the past decade and which type of tasks can fit this mechanism well. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose a game model between a sponsor and N participants. The sponsor is to determine its reward and the participants are to optimize their effort-spending strategy. In this model, each participant's ability is the private information, and thus, all roles in the system face incomplete information. Findings The results of this paper demonstrate the following: whether the sponsor can obtain a positive expected payoff are determined by the type of tasks, while the complex tasks with a strong learning effect is more suitable to selective crowdsourcing, as for the other two types of task, the sponsor cannot obtain a positive payoff, or can just gain a rather low payoff; besides the task type, the sponsor's efficiency in using the solutions and the public's marginal cost also influence the result that whether the sponsor can obtain a positive surplus from the winner-takes-all mechanism. Originality/value The model presented in this paper is innovative by containing the following characteristics. First, each participant's ability is private information, and thus, all roles in the system face incomplete information. Second, the winner-takes-all mechanism is used, implying that the sponsor's reward will be entirely given to the participant with the highest quality solution. Third, the sponsor's utility from the solutions, as well as the public's cost to complete the task, are both assumed as functions just satisfying general properties.


Author(s):  
Xiaohui Bei ◽  
Ning Chen ◽  
Guangda Huzhang ◽  
Biaoshuai Tao ◽  
Jiajun Wu

We study envy-free cake cutting with strategic agents, where each agent may manipulate his private information in order to receive a better allocation. We focus on piecewise constant utility functions and consider two scenarios: the general setting without any restriction on the allocations and the restricted setting where each agent has to receive a connected piece. We show that no deterministic truthful envy-free mechanism exists in the connected piece scenario, and the same impossibility result for the general setting with some additional mild assumptions on the allocations. Finally, we study a large market model where the economy is replicated and demonstrate that truth-telling converges to a Nash equilibrium.


Author(s):  
Jacob K. Goeree ◽  
Charles A. Holt ◽  
Thomas R. Palfrey

This chapter explores whether the equilibrium effects of noisy behavior can cause large deviations from standard predictions in economically relevant situations. It considers a simple price-competition game, which is also partly motivated by the possibility of changing a payoff parameter that has no effect on the unique Nash equilibrium, but which may be expected to affect quantal response equilibrium. In the minimum-effort coordination game studied, any common effort in the range of feasible effort levels is a Nash equilibrium, but one would expect that an increase in the cost of individual effort or an increase in the number of players who are trying to coordinate would reduce the effort levels observed in an experiment. The chapter presents an analysis of the logit equilibrium and rent dissipation for a rent-seeking contest that is modeled as an “all-pay auction.” The final two applications in this chapter deal with auctions with private information.


Complexity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Hong Cheng ◽  
Yingsheng Su ◽  
Jinjiang Yan ◽  
Xianyu Wang ◽  
Mingyang Li

Trade credit is widely used for its advantages. However, trade credit also brings default risk to the manufacturer due to the uncertain demand. And moral hazard may aggravate the default risk. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of moral hazard in trade credit and explore incentive contract under uncertain demand and asymmetric information. We consider a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a risk-neutral retailer ordering a single product from a risk-neutral manufacturer. Market demand is stochastic and is influenced by retailer’s sales effort which is his private information. Incentive theory is used to develop the principal-agent model and get the incentive contract from the manufacturer’s perspective. Results show that the retailer will reduce his effort level to get more profit and the manufacturer’s profit will be reduced, in the case of asymmetric information. Facing this result, the manufacturer will reduce the order quantity in incentive contract to lessen his losses. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate all these theoretical results and to draw managerial insights.


2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Esarey ◽  
Bumba Mukherjee ◽  
Will H. Moore

Private information characteristics like resolve and audience costs are powerful influences over strategic international behavior, especially crisis bargaining. As a consequence, states face asymmetric information when interacting with one another and will presumably try to learn about each others' private characteristics by observing each others' behavior. A satisfying statistical treatment would account for the existence of asymmetric information and model the learning process. This study develops a formal and statistical framework for incomplete information games that we term the Bayesian Quantal Response Equilibrium Model (BQRE model). Our BQRE model offers three advantages over existing work: it directly incorporates asymmetric information into the statistical model's structure, estimates the influence of private information characteristics on behavior, and mimics the temporal learning process that we believe takes place in international politics.


Games ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 64
Author(s):  
Debdatta Saha ◽  
Prabal Roy Chowdhury

This paper examines a persuasion game between two agents with one-sided asymmetric information, where the informed agent can reveal her private information prior to playing a Battle-of-the-Sexes coordination game. There is a close connection between the extent of information revelation and the possibility of coordination failure; while, in the absence of any coordination failure, there exist equilibria with full disclosure, in the presence of strategic uncertainty in coordination there exists an equilibrium with no information revelation. We provide a purification argument for the non-existence result, as well demonstrate that it is robust to several extensions, including both-sided asymmetric information and imprecise information revelation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 655-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uğur Akgün ◽  
Ioana Chioveanu

Abstract This article analyses the use of loyalty inducing discounts in vertical supply chains. An upstream supplier and a competitive fringe sell differentiated products to a retailer who has private information about the stochastic demand. We compare the market outcomes, when the supplier uses two-part tariffs (2PT), all-unit quantity discounts (AU), and market-share discounts (MS). We show that the retailer’s risk attitude affects supplier’s preferences over these pricing schemes. When the retailer is risk neutral, it bears all the risk and the three schemes lead to the same outcome. When the retailer is risk averse, a 2PT performs the worst from the supplier’s perspective, but it leads to the highest welfare. For a wide range of parameter values (but not for all), the supplier prefers MS to AU. By limiting the retailer’s product substitution possibilities, MS makes the demand for the manufacturer’s product more inelastic. This reduces the amount (share of total profits) the supplier needs to leave to the retailer for the latter to participate in the scheme.


1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Feddersen ◽  
Wolfgang Pesendorfer

We analyze a model of a two-candidate election with costless voting in which voters have asymmetric information and diverse preferences. We demonstrate that a strictly positive fraction of the electorate will abstain and that, nevertheless, elections effectively aggregate voters' private information. Using examples, we show that more informed voters are more likely to vote than their less informed counterparts. Increasing the fraction of the electorate that is informed, however, may lead to higher levels of abstention. We conclude by showing that a biased distribution of information can lead to a biased voting population but does not lead to biased outcomes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weonseek Kim ◽  
Bonwoo Koo

Abstract Under the framework of a two-stage innovation process in which the first-stage innovation is commercialized by multiple firms at the second stage, this study proposes an optimal patent system for efficient commercialization by a lower cost firm when the R&D costs are private information. Under the existing patent system of granting patents sequentially to successful innovators, the commercialization can be achieved by an inefficient firm (called control loss) and duplicative R&D efforts may occur through competitive innovation race. This study shows that the problems of control loss and duplicative R&D efforts can be prevented if the patent office grants a patent with a mandatory contingent delegation fee only to the first innovator. A carefully designed contingent fee function can induce the first innovator to internalize the patent office’s objective function, leading to efficient commercialization by a lower cost firm.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 1029-1055 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Noussair ◽  
Yilong Xu

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider whether asymmetric information about correlations between assets can induce financial contagion. Contagion, unjustified by fundamentals, would arise if participants react in one market to uninformative trades in the other market that actually convey no relevant information. The authors also consider whether the market accurately disseminates insider information about fundamental value correlations when such information is indeed present. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ experimental asset markets to answer the research questions. The experimental markets allow participants to simultaneously trade two assets for multiple rounds. In each round, a shock occurs, which either have an idiosyncratic effect on the shocked asset, or a systematic effect on both assets. Half of the time, there exist insiders who know the true nature of the shock and how it affects the value of the other asset. The other half of the time, no agent knows whether there is a correlation between the assets. In such cases, there is the potential for the appearance of information mirages. Uninformed traders, in either condition, do not know whether or not there exist insiders, but can try to infer this from the market activity they observe. Findings – The results of the experiment show that when inside information about the nature of the correlation between assets does exist, it is readily disseminated in the form of market prices. However, when there is no private information (PI), mirages are common, demonstrating that financial contagion can arise in the absence of any fundamental relationship between assets. An analysis of individual behavior suggests that some unprofitable decisions appear to be related to an aversion to complex distributions of lottery payoffs. Originality/value – The study focusses on one of the triggers of unjustified financial contagion, namely, asymmetric information. The authors have studied financial contagion in a controlled experimental setting where the authors can carefully control information, and specify the fundamental interdependence between assets traded in different markets.


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