Learning and noisy equilibrium behavior in an experimental study of imperfect price competition

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Capra, CM; Goeree, JK; Gomez, R; Holt, CA
• 署名单位: Universidad de Malaga; University of Amsterdam; Washington & Lee University
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 613-636
• 关键词: rationality

摘要

We consider a duopoly pricing game with a unique Bertrand-Nash equilibrium. The high-price firm has a nonvanishing market share, however, and intuition suggests that observed prices may be positively related to this market share. This relationship is implied by a model in which players make noisy (logit) best responses to expected payoff differences. The resulting logit equilibrium model was used to design an experiment in which the high-price firm's market share varies. The model accurately predicts the final-period price averages. A naive learning model predicts the observed differences in the time paths of average prices.