In contexts in which players have no priors, we analyze a learning process based on ex-post regret as a guide to understand how to play games of incomplete information under private values. The conclusions depend on whether players interact within a fixed set (fixed matching) or they are...

Theoretical literature on collusion has focused on a specific formulation of payoff fluctuations, namely by demand shocks, and showed that payoff fluctuations are bad for collusion. Introducing general payoff fluctuations, we show that (i) payoff fluctuations may strictly reduce the minimum...

In Cournot games the strategic variable is output and players maximize profits assuming that the other players keep their outputs fixed. In Bertrand games the strategic variable is price and players assume the other players to keep their prices fixed. In this article I argue that it is not the...

We analyze spying out a rival's price in a Bertrand market game with incomplete information. Spying transforms a simultaneous into a robust sequential moves game. We provide conditions for profitable espionage. The spied at firm may attempt to immunize against spying by delaying its pricing...

In a firm organized into business units, we show when profitability increases if procurement is delegated to the division in charge of production. We highlight that our results are driven by the business unit having a different objective function than Headquarters. The profitability of...

Multiple Cournot oligopoly experiments found more collusive behavior in markets with fewer firms (Huck et al., 2004; Hostmann et al., 2018). This result could be explained by a higher difficulty to coordinate or by lower incentives to collude in markets with more firms. We show that the Quantal...

In this paper we show that a homogeneous-product market with multiple Bertrand equilibria becomes a market with a single Bertrand equilibrium when we introduce a small degree of product differentiation. When differentiation tends to zero, that Bertrand equilibrium converges to the unique...

In this paper we characterize optimal punishments with detection lags when the market consists of n oligopolistic firms that compete à la Cournot. It is shown how in the presence of detection lags optimal punishments fail to restore cooperation as long as the number of lags increases. Moreover,...