Price leadership and firm size asymmetry: an experimental analysis
通过实验室实验，研究了在产能约束的双寡头定价中，企业规模不对称如何影响价格领导的出现，发现大企业常成为价格领导者，但同步定价也常见，且规模不对称高时价格更高。
Abstract We use laboratory experiments to examine the effect of firm size asymmetry on the emergence of price leadership in a price-setting duopoly with capacity constraints. Independent of the level of size asymmetry, the unique subgame perfect equilibrium of our timing game predicts that the large firm is the price leader. Experimental data show that price leadership by the large firm is frequent, but simultaneous moves are also often observed. Profit outcomes in the previous period affect the subjects’ decisions to announce or wait in a way that hampers convergence to the equilibrium. Furthermore, while both small and large firms display a strong tendency to wait to announce their price when firm size asymmetry is low, they often set prices early when size asymmetry is high. Prices are higher when price setting is sequential rather than simultaneous and when firm size asymmetry is high. Hence, price leadership by either type of firm has an anti-competitive effect that is more pronounced when the size difference between firms is large.