IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kls/series/0075.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic Disclosure of Demand Information by Duopolists: Theory and Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Jos Jansen
  • Andreas Pollak

Abstract

We study the strategic disclosure of demand information and product-market strategies of duopolists. In a setting where firms may fail to receive information, we show that firms selectively disclose information in equilibrium in order to influence their competitor's product-market strategy. Subsequently, we analyze the firms' behavior in a laboratory experiment. We find that subjects often use selective disclosure strategies, and this finding appears to be robust to changes in the information structure, the mode of competition, and the degree of product differentiation. Moreover, subjects in our experiment display product-market conduct that is largely consistent with theoretical predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jos Jansen & Andreas Pollak, 2014. "Strategic Disclosure of Demand Information by Duopolists: Theory and Experiment," Working Paper Series in Economics 75, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:kls:series:0075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ockenfels.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/wiso_fak/stawi-ockenfels/pdf/wp_series_download/wp0075.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ackert, Lucy F. & Church, Bryan K. & Sankar, Mandira Roy, 2000. "Voluntary disclosure under imperfect competition: experimental evidence," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 81-105, January.
    2. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    3. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    4. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 1999. "Learning in Cournot Oligopoly--An Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(454), pages 80-95, March.
    5. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2004. "Two are few and four are many: number effects in experimental oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 435-446, April.
    6. Jos Jansen, 2008. "Information Acquisition and Strategic Disclosure in Oligopoly," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 113-148, March.
    7. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    8. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    9. Dye, Ronald A., 2001. "An evaluation of "essays on disclosure" and the disclosure literature in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 181-235, December.
    10. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Hwang, Hae-shin, 1994. "Heterogeneity and the Incentive to Share Information in Cournot Oligopoly Market," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(2), pages 329-345, 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. Ingebretsen Carlson, Jim & Wu, Tingting, 2022. "Shill bidding and information in eBay auctions: A Laboratory study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 341-360.

    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. Jos Jansen & Andreas Pollak, 2014. "Strategic Disclosure of Demand Information by Duopolists: Theory and Experiment," Economics Working Papers 2014-20, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    2. Jos Jansen & Andreas Pollak, 2015. "Strategic Disclosure of Demand Information by Duopolists: Theory and Experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2015_09, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Benndorf, Volker & Kübler, Dorothea & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2015. "Privacy concerns, voluntary disclosure of information, and unraveling: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 43-59.
    4. Jos Jansen, 2008. "Information Acquisition and Strategic Disclosure in Oligopoly," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 113-148, March.
    5. Andreas Nicklisch, 2012. "Does collusive advertising facilitate collusive pricing? Evidence from experimental duopolies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 515-532, December.
    6. Simeon Schudy & Verena Utikal, 2015. "Does imperfect data privacy stop people from collecting personal health data?," TWI Research Paper Series 98, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    7. Huck, Steffen & Lünser, Gabriele & Spitzer, Florian & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2016. "Medical insurance and free choice of physician shape patient overtreatment: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PB), pages 78-105.
    8. Marco Kleine & Sebastian Kube, 2015. "Communication and Trust in Principal-Team Relationships: Experimental Evidence," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2015_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    9. Vera Angelova & Tobias Regner, 2012. "Do voluntary payments to advisors improve the quality of financial advice? An experimental sender-receiver game," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-011, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    10. Andreas Nicklisch, 2011. "Learning strategic environments: an experimental study of strategy formation and transfer," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 539-558, October.
    11. Fabio Galeotti & Daniel John Zizzo, 2014. "Competence versus Trustworthiness: What Do Voters Care About?," Post-Print halshs-02467510, HAL.
    12. Esra E. Bayindir & Mehmet Y. Gurdal & Ayca Ozdogan & Ismail Saglam, 2020. "Cheap Talk Games with Two-Senders and Different Modes of Communication," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-22, April.
    13. Fallucchi, Francesco & Renner, Elke & Sefton, Martin, 2013. "Information feedback and contest structure in rent-seeking games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 223-240.
    14. Deversi, Marvin & Ispano, Alessandro & Schwardmann, Peter, 2021. "Spin doctors: An experiment on vague disclosure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    15. Mark Pigors & Bettina Rockenbach, 2016. "Consumer Social Responsibility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3123-3137, November.
    16. Volker Benndorf, 2018. "Voluntary Disclosure of Private Information and Unraveling in the Market for Lemons: An Experiment," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, May.
    17. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Crede, Carsten J., 2020. "Post-cartel tacit collusion: Determinants, consequences, and prevention," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    18. Haucap, Justus & Heldman, Christina & Rau, Holger A., 2024. "Gender and cooperation in the presence of negative externalities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 148-169.
    19. repec:hal:cesptp:hal-04821601 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Jeroen Ven & Marie Claire Villeval, 2015. "Dishonesty under scrutiny," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 86-99, July.
    21. Lohse, Tim & Simon, Sven A. & Konrad, Kai A., 2018. "Deception under time pressure: Conscious decision or a problem of awareness?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 31-42.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    duopoly; Cournot competition; Bertrand competition; information disclosure; incomplete information; common value; product differentiation; asymmetry; skewed distribution; laboratory experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • M4 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:kls:series:0075. 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: Kiryl Khalmetski The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Kiryl Khalmetski to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/swkoede.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.