Economic Dances for Two (and Three)

This thesis contributes to the following four topics in industrial organization: i) competition in price and quality, ii) targeted competition, when competitors can vary the degree of their competition with respect to each other, iii) organizational choices in connection with product differentiation, and iv) trade secrets and research joint ventures

Selective Competition

We consider a dynamic (differential) game with three players competing against each other. Each period each player can allocate his resources so as to direct his competition towards particular rivals -- we call such competition selective. The setting can be applied to a wide variety of cases: competition between firms, competition between political parties, warfare. We show that if the players are myopic, the weaker players eventually loose the game to their strongest rival. Vice versa, if the players value their future payoffs high enough, each player concentrates more on fighting his strongest opponent. Consequently, the weaker players grow stronger, the strongest player grows weaker and eventually all the players converge and remain in the game

Oligopolistic Competition in Price and Quality

We consider an oligopolistic market where firms compete in price and quality and where consumers are heterogeneous in knowledge: some consumers know both the prices and quality of the products offered, some know only the prices and some know neither. We show that two types of signalling equilibria are possible. Both are characterised by dispersion and Pareto-inefficiency of the price/quality offers. But, better price/quality combinations are signalled with lower prices in one type and with higher prices in the other type