Communication in Cournot oligopoly

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Goltsman, Maria; Pavlov, Gregory
• 署名单位: Western University (University of Western Ontario)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2014.06.008
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 152-176
• 关键词: Cournot oligopoly; COMMUNICATION; INFORMATION; cheap talk; Mediation

摘要

This paper studies communication in a static Cournot duopoly model under the assumption that the firms have unverifiable private information about their costs. We investigate the conditions under which the firms cannot transmit any information through cheap talk, and show that when these conditions are violated, it may be possible to construct informative cheap-talk equilibria. If the firms can communicate through a third party, communication can be informative even when informative cheap talk is impossible. We exhibit a simple mediated mechanism that ensures informative communication and interim Pareto dominates the uninformative equilibrium for the firms. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.