An assessment of Nash equilibria in the airline industry

Alexandra Belova, Philippe Gagnepain () and Stephane Gauthier
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Alexandra Belova: ECOPSY Consulting
Philippe Gagnepain: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: We study competition in the U.S. airline industry relaxing the Nash equilibrium assumption that airlines are able to predict perfectly the behavior of their competitors. We assess empirically whether an equilibrium is more likely to occur if it is the unique rationalizable outcome. We find that equilibria of short distance routes with high traffic and low concentration are the most fragile, and low-cost companies appear detrimental to their occurrence. Our analysis is applied to the measurement of welfare gains from firms' entry, and to the characterization of the relevant market when some products are unobserved.

Keywords: Welfare analysis; Airline industry; Structural model; Cournot competition; Nash equilibrium; Rationalizability; Relevant market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-gth, nep-tre and nep-ure
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Working Paper: An assessment of Nash equilibria in the airline industry (2020)
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