SEQUENTIAL PRICE SETTING: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM A LAB EXPERIMENT
在Varian价格竞争模型中，从同时定价改为序贯定价会显著改变均衡策略，推动价格升至垄断水平。实验室实验验证了这一预测，但部分参与者按非对称均衡设定低价，引入竞争偏好可解释这一现象。
Abstract In the Varian (1980; American Economic Review 70(4) (1980), 651–59) model of price competition, a change from simultaneous to sequential price setting dramatically changes equilibrium strategies, and in the unique symmetric, equilibrium prices are pushed up to the monopoly price. There also exists an asymmetric equilibrium with lower average prices. Our main contribution is to test these predictions in the laboratory. Our data strongly support the qualitative model predictions. However, a fraction of players set low prices in accordance with the asymmetric equilibrium, which is puzzling. We show that the puzzle to a large extent can be resolved by introducing competitive preferences in the model.