Partial information sharing in Cournot oligopoly

Arbeitspapier

We study the incentives of Cournot oligopolists to acquire and disclose information on a common cost (or demand) parameter. Since information acquisition is such that firms may fail to acquire information, firms can credibly conceal unfavorable news while disclosing favorable news. This paper compares the incentives, profits and welfare under such a partial disclosure regime with the regimes where firms commit to share all or no information. We show that, for su.ciently low (high) information acquisition costs, a firm (antitrust authority) prefers voluntary disclosure to precommitment. Moreover, incentives and expected profits are often non-monotonic in the amount of information disclosed.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WZB Discussion Paper ; No. SP II 2004-01

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design ; Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Antitrust Issues and Policies: General
• Subject: Cournot competition ; information acquisition ; information sharing ; commitment ; common value

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Jansen, Jos
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2004

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/51037
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET