Comparative statics, strategic complements and substitutes in oligopolies (Q707389)

The common framework to analyze oligopolistic markets is non-cooperative game theory. Many fundamental questions in oligopoly models reduce to the investigation of monotonicity properties of various performance measures under the model's Nash equilibrium, with respect to specific exogenously specified parameters. In the paper, Bertrand and Cournot oligopoly models with a general nonlinear cost function and general dependencies of the cost and demand function are considered. The authors establish some first- and second-order monotonicity properties with respect to equilibrium prices, quantities, profit margins, and profits. Their results generalize the results of \textit{A. Dixit} [Int. Econ. Rev. 27, 107--122 (1986; Zbl 0584.90012)] and a variety of monotonicity results existing in the literature.