The Effect of Ambiguity on Price Dispersion in Duopoly Markets

The Effect of Ambiguity on Price Dispersion in Duopoly Markets PDF Author: Zachary Dorobiala
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Price dispersion remains a persistent feature of markets for many consumer goods. Theoretically, tension between competing for informed consumers and exploiting captive consumers yields mixed strategy pricing equilibria. This paper considers the implications on pricing levels and dispersion when there is ambiguity about a firm's share of the captive consumers. Said ambiguity forces firms to make pricing decisions without specific probabilities attached to consumer buying habits. The model reveals that ambiguity aversion forces relatively small firms to price higher on average while it causes relatively large firms to price more competitively on average. An experiment provides empirical support for this result, while also showing that individual ambiguity attitudes do not matter when in a market without ambiguity. Additionally, ambiguity significantly lowers price dispersion in markets with a high fraction of informed consumers, while also increasing competition between firms. This effect is primarily driven by the firm with a larger share of captive consumers.

The Effect of Ambiguity on Price Dispersion in Duopoly Markets

The Effect of Ambiguity on Price Dispersion in Duopoly Markets PDF Author: Zachary Dorobiala
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Price dispersion remains a persistent feature of markets for many consumer goods. Theoretically, tension between competing for informed consumers and exploiting captive consumers yields mixed strategy pricing equilibria. This paper considers the implications on pricing levels and dispersion when there is ambiguity about a firm's share of the captive consumers. Said ambiguity forces firms to make pricing decisions without specific probabilities attached to consumer buying habits. The model reveals that ambiguity aversion forces relatively small firms to price higher on average while it causes relatively large firms to price more competitively on average. An experiment provides empirical support for this result, while also showing that individual ambiguity attitudes do not matter when in a market without ambiguity. Additionally, ambiguity significantly lowers price dispersion in markets with a high fraction of informed consumers, while also increasing competition between firms. This effect is primarily driven by the firm with a larger share of captive consumers.

Three Essays on the Role of Ambiguity in Games and Markets

Three Essays on the Role of Ambiguity in Games and Markets PDF Author: Zachary Eugene Dorobiala
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Many economic decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty, specifically decisions where the exact probabilities associated with specific outcomes are unknown. The formal study of ambiguity dates back to Ellsberg's famous thought experiment that shed light on the difference between risk (known uncertainty) and ambiguity (unknown uncertainty). His study showed that decision-makers treat betting on events with known uncertainty differently than those with unknown uncertainty. My work expands the applications of these approaches to economic activities to provide more predictive insights into behavior. Chapter 1 employs experimental methods to examine the effect of exogenous ambiguity on price dispersion and price levels in an asymmetric, two-firm market. This market contains two types of consumers- informed consumers, who purchase the good from the lowest priced firm, and uninformed consumers, who buy from the firm to whom they are brand loyal. In this market, ambiguity is exogenously placed on the share of uninformed consumers. This ambiguity about the uninformed consumer is presented to the firms as an unknown distribution over an interval of potential consumers. The behavioral results reveal empirical evidence that ambiguity affects duopoly pricing markets. Chapter 2 again relies on laboratory experiments to examine strategic ambiguity in two-person games. The three strategic games include: a modified dominant-strategy Tullock contest, a Minimum-effort Coordination game, and a classic zero-sum Rock-Paper-Scissors game. In each setting, we collected the player's beliefs about what their opponent will play and the player's actual choice within each game. Additionally, including a non-strategic setting, a three-color Ellsberg urn task, to play the role of a non-strategic analog to the Rock-Paper-Scissors game. Within these four settings, we examine and find stable ambiguity attitudes and varying perceptions of ambiguity. Chapter 3 explores global excess returns using naturally occurring international asset pricing data. We decompose the excess market return into a speculation (sentiment) and a non-speculation (risk) component. This decomposition enables us to make four main contributions to sources of risk in global equity markets. The results are borne out in regressions where we test each separately and jointly in kitchen sink regressions.

Price Discrimination and Price Dispersion in a Duopoly

Price Discrimination and Price Dispersion in a Duopoly PDF Author: Tommaso M. Valletti
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper analyzes the problem of price discrimination in a market where consumers have heterogeneous preferences both over a horizontal parameter (brand) and a vertical one (quality). Discriminatory contracts are characterized for different market structures. It is shown that price dispersion, i.e., the observed range of prices for each class of customers, increases almost everywhere as competition is introduced in the market. The findings are discussed with reference to the U.K. mobile telecommunications market.

Handbook of Industrial Organization

Handbook of Industrial Organization PDF Author: Mark Armstrong
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 008055184X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 943

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Book Description
This is Volume 3 of the Handbook of Industrial Organization series (HIO). Volumes 1 & 2 published simultaneously in 1989 and many of the chapters were widely cited and appeared on graduate reading lists. Since the first volumes published, the field of industrial organization has continued to evolve and this volume fills the gaps. While the first two volumes of HIO contain much more discussion of the theoretical literature than of the empirical literature, it was representative of the field at that time. Since then, the empirical literature has flourished, while the theoretical literature has continued to grow, and this new volume reflects that change of emphasis. Thie volume is an excellent reference and teaching supplement for industrial organization or industrial economics, the microeconomics field that focuses on business behavior and its implications for both market structures and processes, and for related public policies. *Part of the renowned Handbooks in Economics series *Chapters are contributed by some of the leading experts in their fields *A source, reference and teaching supplement for industrial organizations or industrial economists

Oligopoly Pricing

Oligopoly Pricing PDF Author: Xavier Vives
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
ISBN: 9780262220606
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Applies a modern game-theoretic approach to develop a theory of oligopoly pricing. The text relates classic contributions to the field of modern game theory and discusses basic game-theoretic tools and equilibrium, paying particular attention to developments in the theory of supermodular games.

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change PDF Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674041431
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications

Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications PDF Author: R.J. Aumann
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 9780444894274
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 824

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Book Description
This is the second of three volumes surveying the state of the art in Game Theory and its applications to many and varied fields, in particular to economics. The chapters in the present volume are contributed by outstanding authorities, and provide comprehensive coverage and precise statements of the main results in each area. The applications include empirical evidence. The following topics are covered: communication and correlated equilibria, coalitional games and coalition structures, utility and subjective probability, common knowledge, bargaining, zero-sum games, differential games, and applications of game theory to signalling, moral hazard, search, evolutionary biology, international relations, voting procedures, social choice, public economics, politics, and cost allocation. This handbook will be of interest to scholars in economics, political science, psychology, mathematics and biology. For more information on the Handbooks in Economics series, please see our home page on http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/hes

The Wealth of Networks

The Wealth of Networks PDF Author: Yochai Benkler
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300125771
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
Describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing. The author shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront.

Handbook of Monetary Economics

Handbook of Monetary Economics PDF Author: Benjamin M. Friedman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Handbook of Industrial Organization

Handbook of Industrial Organization PDF Author: Richard Schmalensee
Publisher: North Holland
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1002

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Book Description
Determinants of firm and market organization; Analysis of market behavior; Empirical methods and results; International issues and comparision; government intervention in the Marketplace.