IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/16873_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Oligopolistic competition and welfare

In: Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I

Author

Listed:
  • Robert A. Ritz

Abstract

This chapter provides a selective survey of recent developments in the study of social welfare under oligopoly. The main topics covered are (i) the rate of cost pass-through as a tool to analyze market performance; (ii) the quantification of welfare losses due to market power in Cournot-style models; and (iii) new results from models with endogenous entry. The chapter highlights common themes across these topics and identifies areas for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert A. Ritz, 2018. "Oligopolistic competition and welfare," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 7, pages 181-200, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:16873_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781785363276.00013.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Corchón, Luis C. & Zudenkova, Galina, 2009. "Computing welfare losses from data under imperfect competition with heterogeneous goods," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 646-654, November.
    2. Allaz Blaise & Vila Jean-Luc, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Claude d'Aspremont & Rodolphe Dos Santos Ferreira & Louis-André Gérard-Varet, 2007. "Competition For Market Share Or For Market Size: Oligopolistic Equilibria With Varying Competitive Toughness," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(3), pages 761-784, August.
    4. Gabaix, Xavier & Laibson, David & Li, Deyuan & Li, Hongyi & Resnick, Sidney & de Vries, Casper G., 2016. "The impact of competition on prices with numerous firms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-24.
    5. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    6. Amir, Rabah & De Castro, Luciano & Koutsougeras, Leonidas, 2014. "Free entry versus socially optimal entry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 112-125.
    7. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    8. Jan Boone, 2008. "A New Way to Measure Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1245-1261, August.
    9. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David, 2010. "The supply function equilibrium and its policy implications for wholesale electricity auctions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 209-226, December.
    10. Cabral, Luis M. B., 2004. "Simultaneous entry and welfare," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 943-957, October.
    11. Ritz, Robert A., 2008. "Strategic incentives for market share," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 586-597, March.
    12. Robert A. Ritz, 2014. "On Welfare Losses Due to Imperfect Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 167-190, March.
    13. Ritz, Robert A. & Walther, Ansgar, 2015. "How do banks respond to increased funding uncertainty?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 386-410.
    14. Jeremy Bulow & Paul Klemperer, 2012. "Regulated Prices, Rent Seeking, and Consumer Surplus," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 160-186.
    15. Anderson, Simon P. & Renault, Regis, 2003. "Efficiency and surplus bounds in Cournot competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 253-264, December.
    16. Miller, Nathan H. & Remer, Marc & Sheu, Gloria, 2013. "Using cost pass-through to calibrate demand," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 451-454.
    17. E. Glen Weyl & Michal Fabinger, 2013. "Pass-Through as an Economic Tool: Principles of Incidence under Imperfect Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 528-583.
    18. Federico Etro, 2008. "Stackelberg Competition with Endogenous Entry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1670-1697, October.
    19. Jan Boone, 2008. "A New Way to Measure Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1245-1261, August.
    20. Posner, Richard A, 1975. "The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(4), pages 807-827, August.
    21. Joseph Farrell & Michael Katz, 2006. "The Economics of Welfare Standards in Antitrust," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 2.
    22. Reiss, Peter C. & Wolak, Frank A., 2007. "Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples from Industrial Organization," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 64, Elsevier.
    23. Blaise Allaz & Jean-Luc Vila, 1993. "Cournot Competition, Forward Markets and Efficiency," Post-Print hal-00511806, HAL.
    24. d'Aspremont, Claude & Dos Santos Ferreira, Rodolphe, 2009. "Price-quantity competition with varying toughness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 62-82, January.
    25. Fershtman, Chaim & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Equilibrium Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 927-940, December.
    26. Simon Cowan & Xiangkang Yin, 2008. "Competition Can Harm Consumers," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 264-271, September.
    27. Federico Etro, 2006. "Aggressive leaders," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 146-154, March.
    28. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2010. "A Model of Delegated Project Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 213-244, January.
    29. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    30. Xavier Vives, 2002. "Private Information, Strategic Behavior, and Efficiency in Cournot Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(3), pages 361-376, Autumn.
    31. Paolo Bertoletti & Federico Etro, 2016. "Preferences, entry, and market structure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(4), pages 792-821, November.
    32. repec:bla:jindec:v:45:y:1997:i:3:p:245-67 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. Miller, Nolan H & Pazgal, Amit I, 2001. "The Equivalence of Price and Quantity Competition with Delegation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 284-301, Summer.
    34. Green, Richard J & Newbery, David M, 1992. "Competition in the British Electricity Spot Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 929-953, October.
    35. Cabral, Luis M. B., 1995. "Conjectural variations as a reduced form," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 397-402, October.
    36. N. Gregory Mankiw & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Free Entry and Social Inefficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 48-58, Spring.
    37. Marek Weretka & Marek Pycia & Marzena Rostek, 2009. "Design of Divisible Good Auctions," 2009 Meeting Papers 1226, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    38. Shapiro, Carl, 1989. "Theories of oligopoly behavior," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 329-414, Elsevier.
    39. Bresnahan, Timothy F., 1989. "Empirical studies of industries with market power," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 17, pages 1011-1057, Elsevier.
    40. Klemperer, Paul D & Meyer, Margaret A, 1989. "Supply Function Equilibria in Oligopoly under Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1243-1277, November.
    41. MacKay, Alexander & Miller, Nathan H. & Remer, Marc & Sheu, Gloria, 2014. "Bias in reduced-form estimates of pass-through," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 200-202.
    42. Robert A. Ritz, 2014. "A new version of Edgeworth's taxation paradox," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 209-226, January.
    43. Vickers, John, 1995. "Concepts of Competition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 1-23, January.
    44. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2008. "Price‐increasing competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 1042-1058, December.
    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. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    2. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and industrial organization," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 511-517.
    3. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through and Welfare Measures under Imperfect Competition," Papers 1702.04967, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2018.
    4. Adachi, Takanori, 2020. "Hong and Li meet Weyl and Fabinger: Modeling vertical structure by the conduct parameter approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    5. Adachi, Takanori & Fabinger, Michal, 2022. "Pass-through, welfare, and incidence under imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    6. Corchón, Luis C. & Torregrosa, Ramón J., 2020. "Cournot equilibrium revisited," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 1-10.

    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. Robert A. Ritz, 2014. "On Welfare Losses Due to Imperfect Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 167-190, March.
    2. Robert A. Ritz, 2014. "On Welfare Losses Due to Imperfect Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 167-190, March.
    3. E. Glen Weyl & Michal Fabinger, 2013. "Pass-Through as an Economic Tool: Principles of Incidence under Imperfect Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 528-583.
    4. Genakos, C. & Grey, F. & Ritz, R., 2020. "Generalized linear competition: From pass-through to policy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2078, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Yasui, Yuta & Haraguchi, Junichi, 2018. "Supply function equilibria and nonprofit-maximizing objectives," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 50-55.
    6. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    7. Newbery, David M. & Greve, Thomas, 2017. "The strategic robustness of oligopoly electricity market models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 124-132.
    8. Moritz Bohland & Sebastian Schwenen, 2020. "Technology Policy and Market Structure: Evidence from the Power Sector," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1856, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Claude, DASPREMONT & Rodolphe, DOS SANTOS FERREIRA & Jacques, THEPOT, 2007. "Hawks and doves in segmented markets : a formal approach to competitive aggressiveness," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2007039, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    10. Tabacco, Giovanni Alberto, 2013. "A new way to assess banking competition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 167-169.
    11. Monika Mrázová & J. Peter Neary, 2017. "Not So Demanding: Demand Structure and Firm Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3835-3874, December.
    12. Paizs, László & Mészáros, Mátyás Tamás, 2003. "Piachatalmi problémák modellezése a dereguláció utáni magyar áramtermelő piacon [Modelling problems of market power on the Hungarian electricity-generation market after deregulation]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 735-764.
    13. Holmberg, Pär & Newbery, David, 2010. "The supply function equilibrium and its policy implications for wholesale electricity auctions," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 209-226, December.
    14. Coccorese, Paolo, 2012. "Banks as ‘fat cats’: Branching and price decisions in a two-stage model of competition," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 338-363.
    15. Natalia Fabra & Mar Reguant, 2014. "Pass-Through of Emissions Costs in Electricity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2872-2899, September.
    16. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, October.
    17. Paul Twomey & Richard Green & Karsten Neuhoff & David Newbery, 2005. "A Review of the Monitoring of Market Power: The Possible Roles of TSOs in Monitoring for Market Power Issues in Congested Transmission Systems," Working Papers 0502, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
    18. Fiuza de Bragança, Gabriel Godofredo & Daglish, Toby, 2016. "Can market power in the electricity spot market translate into market power in the hedge market?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 11-26.
    19. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    20. Kovác, Eugen & Vinogradov, Viatcheslav & Zigic, Kresimir, 2010. "Technological leadership and persistence of monopoly under endogenous entry: Static versus dynamic analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1421-1441, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economics and Finance;

    JEL classification:

    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General
    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:elg:eechap:16873_7. 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: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    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.