IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v65y2019i6p2467-2481.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cournot Competition in Networked Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Kostas Bimpikis

    (Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305)

  • Shayan Ehsani

    (Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305)

  • Rahmi İlkılıç

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile)

Abstract

The paper considers a model of competition among firms that produce a homogeneous good in a networked environment. A bipartite graph determines which subset of markets a firm can supply to. Firms compete à la Cournot and decide how to allocate their production output to the markets they are directly connected to. We provide a characterization of the production quantities at the unique equilibrium of the resulting game for any given network. Our results identify a novel connection between the equilibrium outcome and supply paths in the underlying network structure. We then proceed to study the impact of changes in the competition structure, for example, due to a firm expanding into a new market or two firms merging, on firms’ profits and consumer surplus. The modeling framework we propose can be used in assessing whether expanding in a new market is profitable for a firm, identifying opportunities for collaboration, for example, a joint venture between competing firms, and guiding regulatory action in the context of market design and antitrust analysis. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3061 . This paper was accepted by Gad Allon, operations management.

Suggested Citation

  • Kostas Bimpikis & Shayan Ehsani & Rahmi İlkılıç, 2019. "Cournot Competition in Networked Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2467-2481, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:65:y:2019:i:6:p:2467-2481
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2018.3061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3061
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3061?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yann Bramoull? & Rachel Kranton & Martin D'Amours, 2014. "Strategic Interaction and Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 898-930, March.
    2. Jian Yao & Ilan Adler & Shmuel S. Oren, 2008. "Modeling and Computing Two-Settlement Oligopolistic Equilibrium in a Congested Electricity Network," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 34-47, February.
    3. Berry, Carolyn A. & Hobbs, Benjamin F. & Meroney, William A. & O'Neill, Richard P. & StewartJr, William R., 1999. "Understanding how market power can arise in network competition: a game theoretic approach," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 139-158, September.
    4. Allouch, Nizar, 2015. "On the private provision of public goods on networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 527-552.
    5. Xavier Vives, 2011. "Strategic Supply Function Competition With Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(6), pages 1919-1966, November.
    6. Georgia Perakis & Wei Sun, 2014. "Efficiency Analysis of Cournot Competition in Service Industries with Congestion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2684-2700, November.
    7. Nava, Francesco, 2015. "Efficiency in decentralized oligopolistic markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 315-348.
    8. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    9. William N. Evans & Ioannis N. Kessides, 1994. "Living by the "Golden Rule": Multimarket Contact in the U. S. Airline Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 341-366.
    10. Awi Federgruen & Ming Hu, 2015. "Multi-Product Price and Assortment Competition," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 572-584, June.
    11. Kim, E Han & Singal, Vijay, 1993. "Mergers and Market Power: Evidence from the Airline Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 549-569, June.
    12. Coralio Ballester & Antoni Calvó-Armengol & Yves Zenou, 2006. "Who's Who in Networks. Wanted: The Key Player," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1403-1417, September.
    13. Xing Hu & René Caldentey & Gustavo Vulcano, 2013. "Revenue Sharing in Airline Alliances," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1177-1195, May.
    14. Severin Borenstein & James Bushnell & Christopher R. Knittel, 1999. "Market Power in Electricity Markets: Beyond Concentration Measures," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 65-88.
    15. Blume, Lawrence E. & Easley, David & Kleinberg, Jon & Tardos, Éva, 2009. "Trading networks with price-setting agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 36-50, September.
    16. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    17. Georgia Perakis & Guillaume Roels, 2007. "The Price of Anarchy in Supply Chains: Quantifying the Efficiency of Price-Only Contracts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(8), pages 1249-1268, August.
    18. Thành Nguyen, 2015. "Coalitional Bargaining in Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 501-511, June.
    19. Syngjoo Choi & Andrea Galeotti & Sanjeev Goyal, 2017. "Trading in Networks: Theory and Experiments," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 784-817.
    20. Itai Ashlagi & Mark Braverman & Avinatan Hassidim, 2014. "Stability in Large Matching Markets with Complementarities," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 713-732, August.
    21. Elodie Adida & Victor DeMiguel, 2011. "Supply Chain Competition with Multiple Manufacturers and Retailers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 156-172, February.
    22. Ozan Candogan & Kostas Bimpikis & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2012. "Optimal Pricing in Networks with Externalities," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 883-905, August.
    23. Bulow, Jeremy I & Geanakoplos, John D & Klemperer, Paul D, 1985. "Multimarket Oligopoly: Strategic Substitutes and Complements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 488-511, June.
    24. Alper Nakkas & Yi Xu, 2019. "The Impact of Valuation Heterogeneity on Equilibrium Prices in Supply Chain Networks," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(2), pages 241-257, February.
    25. Gad Allon & Awi Federgruen, 2009. "Competition in Service Industries with Segmented Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 619-634, April.
    26. Mihai Manea, 2011. "Bargaining in Stationary Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2042-2080, August.
    27. Rachel E. Kranton & Deborah F. Minehart, 2001. "A Theory of Buyer-Seller Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 485-508, June.
    28. Jonathan Kluberg & Georgia Perakis, 2012. "Generalized Quantity Competition for Multiple Products and Loss of Efficiency," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(2), pages 335-350, April.
    29. Awi Federgruen & Ming Hu, 2016. "Technical Note—Sequential Multiproduct Price Competition in Supply Chain Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 135-149, February.
    30. Nava, Francesco, 2015. "Efficiency in decentralized oligopolistic markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 61879, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    31. Patrick T. Harker, 1986. "Alternative Models of Spatial Competition," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(3), pages 410-425, June.
    32. Chad Syverson, 2008. "Markets: Ready-Mixed Concrete," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 217-234, Winter.
    33. Michael Ostrovsky, 2008. "Stability in Supply Chain Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 897-923, June.
    34. Charles J. Corbett & Uday S. Karmarkar, 2001. "Competition and Structure in Serial Supply Chains with Deterministic Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(7), pages 966-978, July.
    35. Jans, Ivette & Rosenbaum, David I., 1997. "Multimarket contact and pricing: Evidence from the U.S. cement industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 391-412, May.
    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. Zenou, Yves & Xu, Jin & Zhou, Junjie, 2019. "Networks in Conflict: A Variational Inequality Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 13647, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Xupeng Wei & Achilleas Anastasopoulos, 2021. "Mechanism Design for Demand Management in Energy Communities," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-34, July.
    3. Ningning Lang & Lin Wang & Quanbo Zha, 2022. "Targeted Allocation of Marketing Resource in Networks Based on Opinion Dynamics," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-21, January.
    4. Jens Leth Hougaard & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2022. "Optimal Management of Evolving Hierarchies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 6024-6038, August.
    5. Kshitija Taywade & Brent Harrison & Judy Goldsmith, 2022. "Using Non-Stationary Bandits for Learning in Repeated Cournot Games with Non-Stationary Demand," Papers 2201.00486, arXiv.org.
    6. Furkan Sezer & Ceyhun Eksin, 2022. "Information Preferences of Individual Agents in Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian Network Games," Papers 2203.13056, arXiv.org.
    7. Chakraborty, Abhishek & Mandal, Prasenjit, 2021. "Channel efficiency and retailer tier dominance in a supply chain with a common manufacturer," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(1), pages 100-121.
    8. Zhu, Haoruo & Ni, Yaodong & Yang, Meng & Song, Qinyu, 2023. "Blessing or curse? Impact of incomplete information in a networked cournot competition," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    9. César García-Díaz & Gábor Péli & Arjen van Witteloostuijn, 2020. "The coevolution of the firm and the product attribute space," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-25, June.
    10. Humoud Alsabah & Benjamin Bernard & Agostino Capponi & Garud Iyengar & Jay Sethuraman, 2021. "Multiregional Oligopoly with Capacity Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4789-4808, August.
    11. Dinah A. Cohen-Vernik & Li Yang & Amit Pazgal, 2022. "Strategic Delegation with Differentiated Products," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 9(3), pages 66-73, December.
    12. Liu, Hengyu & Zheng, Kai, 2024. "Analysis of the Chinese government's subsidy programs to restore the pork supply chain: The case of African swine fever," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    13. Pierre Cariou & Patrice Guillotreau, 2022. "Capacity management by global shipping alliances: findings from a game experiment," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 24(1), pages 41-66, March.
    14. Fu, Chenyi & Ma, Shoufeng & Zhu, Ning & He, Qiao-Chu & Yang, Hai, 2022. "Bike-sharing inventory management for market expansion," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 28-54.
    15. Pierre Bernhard & Marc Deschamps, 2020. "Le Modèle de Cournot avec entrées aléatoires de firmes," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03547666, HAL.
    16. Song, Yanwu & Dong, Ying, 2024. "Influence of resource compensation and complete information on green sustainability of semiconductor supply chains," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    17. König, Michael D. & Rogers, Tim, 2023. "Endogenous technology cycles in dynamic R&D networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    18. Chen, Jun & Elliott, Matthew & Koh, Andrew, 2023. "Capability accumulation and conglomeratization in the information age," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    19. Muñoz, M.A. & Pineda, S. & Morales, J.M., 2022. "A bilevel framework for decision-making under uncertainty with contextual information," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    20. Xu, Jin & Zenou, Yves & Zhou, Junjie, 2022. "Equilibrium characterization and shock propagation in conflict networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    21. Palsule-Desai, Omkar D., 2021. "Multi-product supply networks: Implications of intermediaries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(3), pages 909-929.
    22. Kshitija Taywade & Brent Harrison & Adib Bagh, 2022. "Modelling Cournot Games as Multi-agent Multi-armed Bandits," Papers 2201.01182, arXiv.org.
    23. Chen, J. & Elliott, M. & Koh, A., 2020. "Capability Accumulation and Conglomeratization in the Information Age," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2069, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    24. Barauskaite, Kristina & Nguyen, Anh D.M., 2021. "Global intersectoral production network and aggregate fluctuations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

    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. Thành Nguyen & Karthik Kannan, 2021. "Welfare Implications in Intermediary Networks," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 378-393, June.
    2. Toomas Hinnosaar, 2019. "Price Setting on a Network," Papers 1904.06757, arXiv.org.
    3. Jackson, Matthew O. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Games on Networks," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    4. Daron Acemoglu, Ali Kakhbod, and Asuman Ozdaglar, 2017. "Competition in Electricity Markets with Renewable Energy Sources," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(KAPSARC S).
    5. Kotowski, Maciej H. & Leister, C. Matthew, 2018. "Trading Networks and Equilibrium Intermediation," Working Paper Series rwp18-001, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    6. Goyal, S., 2016. "Networks and Markets," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1652, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Andrea Galeotti & Benjamin Golub & Sanjeev Goyal, 2020. "Targeting Interventions in Networks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2445-2471, November.
    9. Chakraborty, Abhishek & Mandal, Prasenjit, 2021. "Channel efficiency and retailer tier dominance in a supply chain with a common manufacturer," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(1), pages 100-121.
    10. Desmond Cai & Subhonmesh Bose & Adam Wierman, 2019. "On the Role of a Market Maker in Networked Cournot Competition," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(3), pages 1122-1144, August.
    11. Itkonen, Juha, 2017. "Efficiency and dependency in a network of linked permit markets," Research Discussion Papers 20/2017, Bank of Finland.
    12. Humoud Alsabah & Benjamin Bernard & Agostino Capponi & Garud Iyengar & Jay Sethuraman, 2021. "Multiregional Oligopoly with Capacity Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4789-4808, August.
    13. Sofia Priazhkina & Samuel Palmer & Pablo Martín-Ramiro & Román Orús & Samuel Mugel & Vladimir Skavysh, 2024. "Digital Payments in Firm Networks: Theory of Adoption and Quantum Algorithm," Staff Working Papers 24-17, Bank of Canada.
    14. Chen, Ying-Ju & Zenou, Yves & Zhou, Junjie, 2022. "The impact of network topology and market structure on pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    15. Ana Babus & Péter Kondor, 2018. "Trading and Information Diffusion in Over‐the‐Counter Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1727-1769, September.
    16. Chen, J. & Elliott, M. & Koh, A., 2020. "Capability Accumulation and Conglomeratization in the Information Age," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2069, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    17. Demange, Gabrielle, 2017. "Optimal targeting strategies in a network under complementarities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 84-103.
    18. Jan-Peter Siedlarek, 2012. "Intermediation in Networks," Working Papers 2012.42, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    19. Tatsuhiro Shichijo & Emiko Fukuda, 2019. "A dynamic game analysis of Internet services with network externalities," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 361-388, May.
    20. Ushchev, Philip & Zenou, Yves, 2018. "Price competition in product variety networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 226-247.
    21. Ying‐Ju Chen & Yves Zenou & Junjie Zhou, 2018. "Competitive pricing strategies in social networks," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(3), pages 672-705, September.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:65:y:2019:i:6:p:2467-2481. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.