We revisit the relationships between competition and various market outcomes in a differentiated Cournot oligopoly. Consider an oligopolistic market with two differentiated varieties, where each firm sells one of the varieties. We show that social welfare and consumer surplus can decrease with the number of firms when the products of entrants and incumbents are homogeneous. Moreover, an entry of firm can increases prices and profits of firm producing the other variety. We provide a simple exposition of the conditions which determine the effect of an increase in the number of entrants on various market outcomes.

Hackner (2000, Journal of Economic Theory 93, 233-239) shows that in a differentiated oligopoly with more than two firms, prices may be higher under Bertrand competition than under Cournot competition, implying that the classical result of Singh and Vives (1984, Rand Journal of Economics, 15, 546-554) that Bertrand prices are always lower than Cournot prices is sensitive to the duopoly assumption. Hackner (2000, Journal of Economic Theory, 93, 233-239), however, leaves unanswered the important question of whether welfare may be lower under price competition. This note shows that in Hackner's model both consumer surplus and total surplus are higher under price competition than under quantity competition, regardless of whether goods are substitutes or complements.

Applies a modern game-theoretic approach to develop a theory of oligopoly pricing. The text relates classic contributions to the field of modern game theory and discusses basic game-theoretic tools and equilibrium, paying particular attention to developments in the theory of supermodular games.

This book collects many helpful techniques for obtaining regularity results for solutions of nonlinear systems of partial differential equations. These are applied in various cases to provide useful examples and relevant results, particularly in such fields as fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, semiconductor theory and game theory.

Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making. Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness. Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.