We examine the Cournot oligopoly model in the context of social and individual learning. In both models of learning, firms update their decisions about how much to produce via variants of the genetic algorithm updating procedure. Arifovic (1994) found that both models of social and individual learning converged to the Walrasian, competitive equilibrium. Vriend (2000) reports that the model of s...

This paper reconsiders the well known comparison of equilibrium entry levels into a Cournot industry under free entry and under the two commonly used socially optimal schemes. Allowing for the possibility of increasing returns to scale in production, this paper generalizes the conclusion of [Mankiw and Whinston, Rand J. 1986], that free entry yields more …rms than the second-best socially optim...

We examine learning by artificial agents in repeated play of Cournot duopoly games. Our learning model is simple and cognitively realistic. The model departs from standard reinforcement learning models, as applied to agents in games, in that it credits the agent with a form of conceptual ascent, whereby the agent is able to learn from a consideration set of strategies spanning more than one per...

We study continuous time oligopolies in which a small number of firms producing similar goods compete with one another by setting prices or quantities. We study a deterministic version of the problem using an asymptotic expansion of the relevant HJB partial differential equations. We find in this setting that for firms with highly differentiated goods, the type of competition matters little. Fo...

In this paper, in an exchange economy with atoms and an atomless part, we analyze the relationship between the set of the Cournot-Nash equilibrium allocations of a strategic market game and the set of the Walras equilibrium allocations of the exchange economy with which it is associated. In an example, we show that, even when atoms are countably infinite, Cournot-Nash equilibria yield different...

This paper explores the impact of memory in Cournot oligopolies where firms learn through imitation of success as suggested in Alchian (1950) and modeled in Vega-Redondo (1997). As long as memory includes at least one period, the long-run outcome corresponds to any quantity between the Cournot one and the Walras one. The (evolutionary) stability of the walrasian outcome relies on inter-firm com...

An iterative algorithm is proposed and tested in Cournot Game models, which is based on the convergence of sequential best responses and the utilization of a genetic algorithm for determining each player’s best response to a given strategy profile of its opponents. An extra outer loop is used, to address the problem of finite accuracy, which is inherent in genetic algorithms, since the set of f...

Bargaining is a basic game in economic practice. Cournot duopoly game is an important model in bargaining theory and is well studied in the literatures. Recently, asymmetry information [20] and incomplete information [19], limited individual rationality [2] and slightly altruistic equilibrium [10] are introduced into bargaining theory. And computational game theory also comes into being a new h...

In a recent paper Bagwell (1995) pointed out that only the Cournot outcome, but not the Stackelberg outcome, can be supported by a pure Nash equilibrium when actions of the Stackelberg leader are observed with the slightest error. The Stackelberg outcome, however, remains close to the outcome of a mixed equilibrium. We compare the predictions in various classes of evolutionary and learning proc...