Price Competition and Market Concentration: An Experimental Study

Martin Dufwenberg and Uri Gneezy

No 1998:8, Working Paper Series from Uppsala University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The classical price competition model (named after Bertrand), prescribes that in equilibrium prices are equal to marginal costs. Moreover, prices do not depend on the number of competitors. Since this outcome is not in line with real-life observations, it is known as the "Bertrand Paradox". Many theoretical problems with the original model have been considered as an explanation of the paradox in the literature. In this paper we experimentally investigate a model which is immune to the theoretical critique of the original model. We find, nevertheless, that the outcome does depend on the number of competitors: the Bertrand solution does not predict well when the number of competitors is two, but after some opportunities for learning are provided it tends to predict well when the number of competitors is three or four. A bounded rationality explanation of this is suggested.

Keywords: Price competition; Bertrand model; market concentration; experiment; learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 1998-03-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2000, pages 7-22.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Price competition and market concentration: an experimental study (2000)
Working Paper: Price Competition and Market Concentration: An experimental Study (1999)
Working Paper: Price Competition and Market COncentration: An Experimental Study (1998)
Working Paper: Price competition and market concentration: An experimental study (1998)
Working Paper: Price competition and market concentration: An experimental study (1998)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:uunewp:1998_008

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