Secret information acquisition in cournot markets.

Abstract

Two-stage game models of information aequisition in stochastie oligopolies require the unrealistic assumption that firms observe the preeision of information ehosen by their eompetitors before determining quantities. This paper analyzes seeret information aequisition as a one-stage game. relative to the two-stage game firms are shown to acquire les information. Policy implications based on the two-stage game yield, therefore, too high taxes or too low subsidies for research aetivities. For the case of heterogeneous duopoly it is shown that comparative statics results partly depend on the observability assumption.Information acquisition; Oligopoly; uncertainty; Bayesian equilibrium;