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“A profit table or a profit calculator?” A note on the design of Cournot oligopoly experiments

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Abstract

We report on an experiment conducted to evaluate the effects of varying the way in which market information is presented to participants in laboratory Cournot duopolies. We find that the most standard variations, which are the use of a profit table or a profit calculator, yield indistinguishable performance. However, the addition of a best-response option to the profit calculator tends to increase aggregate output to the Cournot level and decrease the incidence of tacit collusion.

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  1. Department of Economics, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Till Requate & Israel Waichman

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  1. Till Requate
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  2. Israel Waichman
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Correspondence to Israel Waichman.

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Requate, T., Waichman, I. “A profit table or a profit calculator?” A note on the design of Cournot oligopoly experiments. Exp Econ 14, 36–46 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-010-9256-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-010-9256-2

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