We challenge the global optimality of one-shot punishments in infinitely repeated games with discounting. Specifically, we show that the stick-and-carrot punishment à la Abreu (1986) may not be globally optimal. We prove our result by investigating tacit collusion in the infinite repetition of...

A well established belief both in the game-theoretic IO and in policy debates is that market concentration facilitates collusion. We show that this piece of conventional wisdom relies upon the assumption of profit-seeking behaviour, for it may be reversed when firms pursue other plausible goals....

We investigate an extended game with observable delay under duopolistic competition in affine supply functions. Firms use the intercepts of supply functions as their strategic variables. Best replies are downward (upward) sloping if the common slope of supply functions is sufficiently low...

In a Cournot duopoly, if only one firm hires a manager while the other remains entrepreneurial, the Cournot-Stackelberg equilibrium emerges, with the managerial firm as the leader. This happens under at least three different delegation schemes. We illustrate the different meachanisms driving...

We revisit the two-stage duopoly game with strategic delegation and asymmetric technologies of Sen and Stamatopoulos (2015). We show that their conclusions are misled by the restrictive assumption that the extent of delegation to managers is restricted to a binary set. Allowing for a continuous...

This paper aims at participating in the long-lasting debate about the analytical foundations of the Cournot equilibrium. In a homogeneous oligopoly, under standard regularity conditions, we prove that Cournot-Nash emerges both under (i) price competition and Cournot conjectures; and (ii) supply...