The empirical content of Cournot competition

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cherchye, Laurens; Demuynck, Thomas; De Rock, Bram
• 署名单位: KU Leuven; Universite Libre de Bruxelles
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2013.04.011
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 1552-1581
• 关键词: Cournot competition; Perfect competition; collusion; conjectural variations; testable implications; identification

摘要

We consider the testable implications of the Cournot model of market competition. Our approach is nonparametric in the sense that we abstain from imposing any functional specification on market demand and firm cost functions. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for (reduced form) equilibrium market price and quantity functions to be consistent with the Cournot model. In addition, we present identification results for the corresponding inverse market demand function and the firm cost functions. Finally, we use our approach to derive testable restrictions for the models of perfect competition, collusion and conjectural variations. This identifies the conditions under which these different models are empirically distinguishable from the Cournot model. We also investigate empirical issues (measurement error and omitted variables) related to bringing our testable restrictions to data. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.