An Experimental Study in Oligopoly

A very general model with which many theories of oligopolistic behavior might be tested would be a useful tool for economists. In the first part of this paper a model is proposed for this role. The model is not developed in the fullest degree of generality, but is presented in the way most relevant to experiments of the type presented in the second part of the paper. The experiments employ a simple market model in which each subject takes the role of a business firm, each firm has only one decision variable under its control (its own price) and the number of firms in an industry is two, three and four.