Doubling Back on Double Marginalization

Laurent Linnemer

Review of Industrial Organization, 2022, vol. 61, issue 1, No 1, 19 pages

Abstract: Abstract “Double marginalization” and “Elimination of Double marginalization” are catch-phrases commonly used in the IO literature. In this article, I trace back the origin of the idea to Cournot (1838, Ch. IX) on complementary goods monopolies. Through the years Cournot’s contribution remained a reference but ended being viewed as a special case of the bilateral monopoly model. Yet, it is worth wondering why the most cited paper on this issue is nowadays (Spengler in J Polit Econ 58(4):347–352, 1950) which contains only an informal treatment of the question. In addition to retracing the origin of the idea, I emphasize the elegant proof of Cournot for the simultaneous game and extend it to the sequential game. I also show that prices are usually higher in the sequential game but that they could be lower if demand is very convex.

Keywords: Cournot; Complements; Successive monopolies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11151-022-09872-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Doubling Back on Double Marginalization (2022)
Working Paper: Doubling Back on Double Marginalization (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:revind:v:61:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11151-022-09872-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... on/journal/11151/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11151-022-09872-z

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Industrial Organization is currently edited by L.J. White

More articles in Review of Industrial Organization from Springer, The Industrial Organization Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().