We build on Mason and Weeds’ (2010) model of duopoly investment under uncertainty by allowing high initial values of the profit shock as in Huisman and Kort (1999). Persistent first-mover advantage increases the likelihood of immediate simultaneous investment. In contrast with previous models...

Consider the Hotelling linear spatial duopoly with firm uncertainty over the consumer mean. As uncertainty about the mean grows relative to the dispersion of consumers, competitive locations become socially optimal. A limit result for discontinuous, log-concave densities is also established.

The relationship between fiscal and financial euro area indicators and sovereign yield spreads has changed after the start of the financial crisis. Increased financial volatility has magnified the impact of fiscal conditions as drivers of sovereign risk, has widened the set of macroeconomic...

We apply an indirect evolutionary approach to players’ perceived prize valuations in contests. Evolution in finite populations leads to preferences that overstate the prize’s material value and induce overexpenditure. We establish an equivalence between evolutionarily stable strategies and...

We experimentally study the effect of a third-person enforcement on a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game played by two persons, with whom the third person plays repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. We find that when the third person can observe these two persons’ play, the possibility of the...

In a linear oligopoly model with antitrust enforcement, the optimal cartel price converges to the competitive equilibrium price. The set of sustainable cartel prices does not shrink to the competitive price. We identify necessary conditions for this counter-intuitive convergence result.

We model a vertically differentiated duopoly with quantity-setting firms as an extended game in which firms noncooperatively choose the timing of moves at the quality stage, to show that at the subgame, perfect equilibrium sequential play obtains, with the low-quality firm taking the leader’s...

This paper explores some implications of the comparison between feedback Nash and Stackelberg equilibria for growth and welfare in a ‘voracity’ model. We show that, as compared to the Nash equilibrium, the Stackelberg equilibrium involves a lower growth rate, while it leaves both the leaders...