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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Yale University

2006

Nash equilibrium

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Competing For Customers In A Social Network, Pradeep Dubey, Rahul Garg, Bernard De Meyer Nov 2006

Competing For Customers In A Social Network, Pradeep Dubey, Rahul Garg, Bernard De Meyer

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

There are many situations in which a customer’s proclivity to buy the product of any firm depends not only on the classical attributes oft he product such as its price and quality, but also on who else is buying the same product. We model these situations as games in which firms compete for customers located in a “social network.” Nash Equilibrium (NE) in pure strategies exist in general. In the quasi-linear version of the model, NE turn out to be unique and can be precisely characterized. If there are no a priori biases between customers and firms, then there is …


Mixed Oligopoly Equilibria When Firms’ Objectives Are Endogenous, Philippe De Donder, John E. Roemer Sep 2006

Mixed Oligopoly Equilibria When Firms’ Objectives Are Endogenous, Philippe De Donder, John E. Roemer

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study a vertically differentiated market where two firms simultaneously choose the quality and price of the good they sell and where consumers also care for the average quality of the goods supplied. Firms are composed of two factions whose objectives differ: one is maximizing profit while the other maximizes revenues. The equilibrium concept we model, called Firm Unanimity Nash Equilibrium (FUNE), corresponds to Nash equilibria between firms when there is efficient bargaining between the two factions inside both firms. One conceptual advantage of FUNE is that oligopolistic equilibria exist in pure strategies, even though the strategy space (price, quality) …


Caller Number Five: Timing Games That Morph From One Form To Another, Andreas Park, Lones Smith Jan 2006

Caller Number Five: Timing Games That Morph From One Form To Another, Andreas Park, Lones Smith

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

There are two varieties of timing games in economics: In a war of attrition, more predecessors helps; in a pre-emption game, more predecessors hurts. In this paper, we introduce and explore a spanning class with rank-order payoffs that subsumes both as special cases. In this environment with unobserved actions and complete information, there are endogenously-timed phase transition moments. We identify equilibria with a rich enough structure to capture a wide array of economic and social timing phenomena — shifting between phases of smooth and explosive entry. We introduce a tractable general theory of this class of timing games based on …