Information, market power, and price volatility

A-Tier
Journal: RAND Journal of Economics
Year: 2021
Volume: 52
Issue: 1
Pages: 125-150

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We consider demand function competition with a finite number of agents and private information. We show that any degree of market power can arise in the unique equilibrium under an information structure that is arbitrarily close to complete information. Regardless of the number of agents and the correlation of payoff shocks, market power may be arbitrarily close to zero (the competitive outcome) or arbitrarily large (so there is no trade). By contrast, price volatility is always lower than the variance of the aggregate shock across all information structures. Alternative trading mechanisms lead to very distinct bounds as a comparison with Cournot competition establishes.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:bla:randje:v:52:y:2021:i:1:p:125-150
Journal Field
Industrial Organization
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-24