Cournot–Stackelberg games in competitive delocation

Diego Ruiz-Hernández (), Javier Elizalde () and David Delgado-Gómez
Additional contact information
Diego Ruiz-Hernández: University College for Financial Studies
David Delgado-Gómez: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Annals of Operations Research, 2017, vol. 256, issue 1, No 9, 149-170

Abstract: Abstract In order to mitigate the effects of the contraction in demand during economic crises, firms face the need to reduce the number of facilities in their networks. This reduction must be conducted taking into consideration both the possible actions of their rival firms and the reaction of the affected customers, so that the loss of market share is minimised. In this article, we analyse the facility closing problem of two firms operating in a duopolistic market. The problem is modelled as a non-cooperative game over a binary integer programming formulation of the firms’ delocation problem. The possible outcome of the game is analysed for three different competitive scenarios: Myopic behaviour, Cournot conjectures, and Stackelberg strategies. These scenarios are analysed under the assumption that customers show certain level of loyalty to the firm that they initially resorted to. This assumption entitles us to establish the existence of Nash equilibria in the delocation game by means of the introduction of a social planner. Moreover, this social planner provides a mechanism for computing the Nash equilibrium in the Cournot delocation game. Additionally, we develop an algorithmic approach that provides a simple mechanism for finding equilibria under Stackelberg strategies. Experimental results indicate that for small reductions in the network size the solution under myopic behaviour is often an equilibrium. For large reductions, evidence has been found that there is a first mover advantage in the Stackelberg delocation game.

Keywords: Facility closing; Competitive delocation; Nash equilibrium; Cournot; Stackelberg; Customer loyalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-016-2288-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:annopr:v:256:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-016-2288-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10479

DOI: 10.1007/s10479-016-2288-z

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Operations Research is currently edited by Endre Boros

More articles in Annals of Operations Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().