 Symmetry-breaking in two-player games via strategic substitutes and diagonal nonconcavity: A synthesisRabah Amir (), Filomena Garcia and Malgorzata Knauff Journal of Economic Theory, 2010, vol. 145, issue 5, 1968-1986 Abstract: This paper is an attempt to develop a unified approach to symmetry-breaking in strategic models arising in industrial organization by constructing two general classes of two-player symmetric games that always possess only asymmetric pure-strategy Nash equilibria. These classes of games are characterized in some abstract sense by two general properties: payoff nonconcavities and some form of strategic substitutability. Our framework relies on easily verified assumptions on the primitives of the game, and relies on the theory of supermodular games. The underlying natural assumptions are satisfied in a number of two-stage models with an investment decision preceding product market competition. To illustrate the generality and wide scope for application of our approach, we present some existing models dealing with R&D, capacity expansion and information provision, which motivated this study. Keywords: Submodular; games; Endogenous; heterogeneity; Asymmetric; Nash; equilibrium; Inter-firm; heterogeneity; Supermodular; games (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:145:y:2010:i:5:p:1968-1986 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Theory is currently edited by A. Lizzeri and K. Shell More articles in Journal of Economic Theory from Elsevier |
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