Oligopolistic Competition and Search Without Priors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Parakhonyak, Alexei
• 署名单位: HSE University (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12142
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 594-606
• 关键词: Sequential search; uncertainty; prices; MODEL

摘要

In this article, I examine a model of oligopolistic competition in which consumers search for prices but have no knowledge of the underlying price distribution. The consumers' behaviour satisfies four consistency requirements and, as a result, their beliefs about the underlying distribution maximise Shannon entropy. I derive the optimal stopping rule and equilibrium price distribution of the model. Unlike in Stahl (), the expected price is decreasing in the number of firms. Moreover, consumers can benefit from being uninformed, if the number of firms is sufficiently large.