HOTELLING'S “MAIN STREET” WITH MORE THAN TWO COMPETITORS*
分析了三个或更多厂商位于霍特林线性城市时的寡头竞争，发现对称区位结构支持非合作价格均衡，但两阶段博弈中不存在服务整个市场的子博弈完美均衡，因为厂商有向中心移动的激励，这破坏了区位均衡。
ABSTRACT. I analyze oligopolistic competition among three or more firms located on Hotelling's (1929) Main Street and show that in contrast with Hotelling's duopoly, the symmetric locational structure supports a noncooperative equilibrium in prices. However, in a two‐stage game of location choice in the first stage, and price choice in the second stage, there exists no subgame‐perfect equilibrium where the whole market is served. This is because, starting from any locational pattern, firms have incentives to move toward the central firm. This strong version of the Principle of Minimum Differentiation destroys the possibility of a locational equilibrium. The results are a direct consequence of the existence of boundaries in the space of location. The sharp difference between these results and those of the standard circular model (whose product space lacks boundaries) shows that the general use of the circular model as an approximation to the line interval model may be unwarranted.