Theoretical Economics Letters

Volume 3, Issue 1 (February 2013)

ISSN Print: 2162-2078   ISSN Online: 2162-2086

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Evolutionarily Stable Conjectures and Social Optimality in Oligopolies

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DOI: 10.4236/tel.2013.31003    4,187 Downloads   7,248 Views  Citations

ABSTRACT

Following the evolutionary game-theoretic approach to analyze Conjectural Variations (CV) in oligopolies, a model is developed to derive the Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS) for quantity-setting and price-setting oligopolies with CV, producing heterogeneous goods. It is shown that ESS coincides with the Consistent CV in the oligopoly model. Earlier studies have demonstrated the above result only for duopolies. It is also shown that the market outcome induced by ESS is socially suboptimal if firms produce heterogeneous products, but can be socially optimal if firms produce homogeneous goods. In general, the market outcome approaches the socially optimal outcome, as the number of firms increases to infinity.

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Reddy Rachapalli, S. and Kulshreshtha, P. (2013) Evolutionarily Stable Conjectures and Social Optimality in Oligopolies. Theoretical Economics Letters, 3, 12-18. doi: 10.4236/tel.2013.31003.

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