IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v45y2009i9-10p664-678.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Endogenous mechanisms and Nash equilibrium in competitive contracting games

Author

Listed:
  • Monteiro, Paulo K.
  • Page Jr., Frank H.

Abstract

We model strategic competition in a market with asymmetric information as a noncooperative game in which each firm competes for the business of a buyer of unknown type by offering the buyer a catalog of products and prices. The timing in our model is Stackelberg: in the first stage, given the distribution of buyer types known to all firms and the deducible, type-dependent best responses of the agent, firms simultaneously and noncooperatively choose their catalog offers. In the second stage the buyer, knowing his type, chooses a single firm and product-price pair from that firm's catalog. By backward induction, this Stackelberg game with asymmetric information reduces to a game over catalogs with payoff indeterminacies. In particular, due to ties within catalogs and/or across catalogs, corresponding to any catalog profile offered by firms there may be multiple possible expected firm payoffs, all consistent with the rational optimizing behavior of the agent for each of his types. The resolution of these indeterminacies depends on the tie-breaking mechanism which emerges in the market. Because each tie-breaking mechanism induces a particular game over catalogs, a reasonable candidate would be a tie-breaking mechanism which supports a Nash equilibrium in the corresponding catalog game. We call such a mechanism an endogenous Nash mechanism. The fundamental question we address in this paper is, does there exist an endogenous Nash mechanism--and therefore, does there exist a Nash equilibrium for the catalog game? We show under fairly mild conditions on primitives that catalog games naturally possess tie-breaking mechanisms which support Nash equilibria.

Suggested Citation

  • Monteiro, Paulo K. & Page Jr., Frank H., 2009. "Endogenous mechanisms and Nash equilibrium in competitive contracting games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(9-10), pages 664-678, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:45:y:2009:i:9-10:p:664-678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-4068(08)00053-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Page, Frank Jr. & Monteiro, Paulo K., 2003. "Three principles of competitive nonlinear pricing," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 63-109, February.
    2. Peters, Michael, 2001. "Common Agency and the Revelation Principle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1349-1372, September.
    3. Blundell,Richard & Newey,Whitney K. & Persson,Torsten (ed.), 2006. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521871525.
    4. Leo K. Simon, 1987. "Games with Discontinuous Payoffs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(4), pages 569-597.
    5. Braido, Luis H.B., 2009. "Multiproduct price competition with heterogeneous consumers and nonconvex costs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(9-10), pages 526-534, September.
    6. Matthew O. Jackson & Leo K. Simon & Jeroen M. Swinkels & William R. Zame, 2002. "Communication and Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games of Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1711-1740, September.
    7. , & ,, 2008. "Nonlinear pricing, market coverage, and competition," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(1), March.
    8. Paulo Monteiro & Frank Page, 2008. "Catalog competition and Nash equilibrium in nonlinear pricing games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 34(3), pages 503-524, March.
    9. Blundell,Richard & Newey,Whitney K. & Persson,Torsten (ed.), 2006. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521692083.
    10. Simon, Leo K & Zame, William R, 1990. "Discontinuous Games and Endogenous Sharing Rules," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 861-872, July.
    11. Carmona, Guilherme & Fajardo, José, 2009. "Existence of equilibrium in common agency games with adverse selection," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 749-760, July.
    12. David Martimort & Lars Stole, 2002. "The Revelation and Delegation Principles in Common Agency Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1659-1673, July.
    13. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    14. Philip J. Reny, 1999. "On the Existence of Pure and Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibria in Discontinuous Games," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(5), pages 1029-1056, September.
    15. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, II: Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 27-41.
    16. Monteiro, Paulo Klinger & Page Jr, Frank H., 2007. "Uniform payoff security and Nash equilibrium in compact games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 566-575, May.
    17. Page, Frank H, Jr, 1992. "Mechanism Design for General Screening Problems with Moral Hazard," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(2), pages 265-281, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Graham Mallard, 2014. "Static Common Agency And Political Influence: An Evaluative Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 17-35, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frank H. Page, Jr. & Paulo K. Monteiro, 2007. "Endogenous Mechanisms and Nash Equilibrium in Competitive Contracting," CAEPR Working Papers 2007-025, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    2. Allison, Blake A. & Bagh, Adib & Lepore, Jason J., 2022. "Invariant equilibria and classes of equivalent games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 448-462.
    3. Carmona, Guilherme & Fajardo, José, 2009. "Existence of equilibrium in common agency games with adverse selection," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 749-760, July.
    4. Philip J. Reny, 2020. "Nash Equilibrium in Discontinuous Games," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 439-470, August.
    5. Attar, Andrea & Mariotti, Thomas & Salanié, François, 2021. "Competitive Nonlinear Pricing under Adverse Selection," TSE Working Papers 21-1201, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Aug 2022.
    6. He, Wei & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2015. "Discontinuous games with asymmetric information: An extension of Reny's existence theorem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 26-35.
    7. Prokopovych, Pavlo & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2014. "On the existence of mixed strategy Nash equilibria," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 87-97.
    8. Ulrich Horst & Santiago Moreno-Bromberg, 2010. "Efficiency and Equilibria in Games of Optimal Derivative Design," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-035, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    9. Rabia Nessah, 2022. "Weakly continuous security and nash equilibrium," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(4), pages 725-745, November.
    10. Zhiwei Liu & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2013. "On Discontinuous Games with Asymmetric Information," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1318, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    11. Tian, Guoqiang, 2015. "On the existence of equilibria in games with arbitrary strategy spaces and preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 9-16.
    12. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard McLean, 2014. "On the existence of Nash equilibrium in Bayesian games," Departmental Working Papers 201402, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    13. Philippe Bich & Rida Laraki, 2013. "On the Existence of Approximated Equilibria and Sharing-Rule Equilibria in Discontinuous Games," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00846143, HAL.
    14. Graham Mallard, 2014. "Static Common Agency And Political Influence: An Evaluative Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 17-35, February.
    15. Philippe Bich & Rida Laraki, 2013. "On the Existence of Approximated Equilibria and Sharing-Rule Equilibria in Discontinuous Games," Working Papers hal-00846143, HAL.
    16. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Richard P. McLean, 2018. "On the Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Bayesian Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 100-129, February.
    17. Rabia Nessah, 2013. "Weakly Continuous Security in Discontinuous and Nonquasiconcave Games: Existence and Characterization," Working Papers 2013-ECO-20, IESEG School of Management.
    18. Gatti, J.R.J., 2005. "A Note on the Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Games with Discontinuous Payoffs," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0510, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    19. Allison, Blake A. & Bagh, Adib & Lepore, Jason J., 2018. "Sufficient conditions for weak reciprocal upper semi-continuity in mixed extensions of games," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 99-107.
    20. Rabia Nessah & Guoqiang Tian, 2008. "The Existence of Equilibria in Discontinuous and Nonconvex Games," Working Papers 2008-ECO-14, IESEG School of Management, revised Mar 2010.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:45:y:2009:i:9-10:p:664-678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.