Duopoly
A duopoly (from Greek , ; and , ) is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market, and most (if not all) of the competition within that market occurs directly between them. Duopoly is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicity. Duopolies sell to consumers in a competitive market where the choice of an individual consumer choice cannot affect the firm in a duopoly market, as the defining characteristic of duopolies is that decisions made by each seller are dependent on what the other competitor does. Duopolies can exist in various forms, such as Cournot, Bertrand, or Stackelberg competition. These models demonstrate how firms in a duopoly can compete on output or price, depending on the assumptions made about firm behavior and market conditions. Similar features are discernible in national political systems of party duopoly. Duopoly models in economics and game theory Cournot duopoly Cournot model in game theor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cournot Competition
Cournot competition is an economic model used to describe an industry structure in which companies compete on the amount of output they will produce, which they decide on independently of each other and at the same time. It is named after Antoine Augustin Cournot (1801–1877) who was inspired by observing competition in a spring water duopoly. It has the following features: * There is more than one firm and all firms produce a homogeneous product, i.e., there is no product differentiation; * Firms do not cooperate, i.e., there is no collusion; * Firms have market power, i.e., each firm's output decision affects the good's price; * The number of firms is fixed; * Firms compete in quantities rather than prices; and * The firms are economically rational and act strategically, usually seeking to maximize profit given their competitors' decisions. An essential assumption of this model is the "not conjecture" that each firm aims to maximize profits, based on the expectation that i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bertrand Competition
Bertrand competition is a model of competition used in economics, named after Joseph Louis François Bertrand (1822–1900). It describes interactions among firms (sellers) that set prices and their customers (buyers) that choose quantities at the prices set. The model was formulated in 1883 by Bertrand in a review of Antoine Augustin Cournot's book ''Recherches sur les Principes Mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses'' (1838) in which Cournot had put forward the Cournot model. Cournot's model argued that each firm should maximise its profit by selecting a quantity level and then adjusting price level to sell that quantity. The outcome of the model equilibrium involved firms pricing above marginal cost; hence, the competitive price. In his review, Bertrand argued that each firm should instead maximise its profits by selecting a price level that undercuts its competitors' prices, when their prices exceed marginal cost. The model was not formalized by Bertrand; however, the id ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Game Theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed two-person zero-sum games, in which a participant's gains or losses are exactly balanced by the losses and gains of the other participant. In the 1950s, it was extended to the study of non zero-sum games, and was eventually applied to a wide range of Human behavior, behavioral relations. It is now an umbrella term for the science of rational Decision-making, decision making in humans, animals, and computers. Modern game theory began with the idea of mixed-strategy equilibria in two-person zero-sum games and its proof by John von Neumann. Von Neumann's original proof used the Brouwer fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets, which became a standard method in game theory and mathematical economics. His paper was f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antoine Augustin Cournot
Antoine Augustin Cournot (; 28 August 180131 March 1877) was a French philosopher and mathematician who contributed to the development of economics. Biography Antoine Augustin Cournot was born on August 28, 1801 in Gray, Haute-Saône. He entered the preparatory school at Collège de Gray in 1809, where he studied until the age of 15. He later studied at Collège Royal de Besançon. In 1821, he entered one of the most prestigious Grande école, the École normale supérieure. According to Agnar Sandmo: in 1823 he took a license degree in mathematics at Sorbonne University. He then became the private secretary of a field marshal who required assistance in writing his memoirs. This position left Cournot with considerable time for his own pursuits. In the course of his ten years in the field marshal's employment he took two doctoral degrees, one in mechanics and one in astronomy. In addition, he published a number of articles and even acquired a degree in law. Subsequently, Cou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oligopoly
An oligopoly () is a market in which pricing control lies in the hands of a few sellers. As a result of their significant market power, firms in oligopolistic markets can influence prices through manipulating the supply function. Firms in an oligopoly are mutually interdependent, as any action by one firm is expected to affect other firms in the market and evoke a reaction or consequential action. As a result, firms in oligopolistic markets often resort to collusion as means of maximising profits. Nonetheless, in the presence of fierce competition among market participants, oligopolies may develop without collusion. This is a situation similar to perfect competition, where oligopolists have their own market structure. In this situation, each company in the oligopoly has a large share in the industry and plays a pivotal, unique role. Many jurisdictions deem collusion to be illegal as it violates competition laws and is regarded as anti-competition behaviour. The EU com ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Duverger's Law
In political science, Duverger's law ( ) holds that in political systems with single-member districts and the first-past-the-post voting system, as in, for example, the United States and Britain, only 2 powerful political parties tend to control power. Citizens do not vote for small parties because they fear splitting votes away from the major party. By contrast, in countries with proportional representation or two-round elections, such as France, Sweden, New Zealand or Spain, there is no two-party duopoly on power. There is usually a significant number of political parties. Citizens are actively encouraged to create, join and vote for new political parties if they are unhappy with current parties. Mechanism A two-party system is most common under plurality voting. Voters typically cast one vote per race. Maurice Duverger argued there were two main mechanisms by which plurality voting systems lead to fewer major parties: (i) small parties are disincentivized to form because t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Competition (economics)
In economics, competition is a scenario where different Economic agent, economic firmsThis article follows the general economic convention of referring to all actors as firms; examples in include individuals and brands or divisions within the same (legal) firm. are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the Marketing mix for product software, marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place. In classical economic thought, competition causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products. The greater the selection of a good is in the market, the lower prices for the products typically are, compared to what the price would be if there was no competition (monopoly) or little competition (oligopoly). The level of competition that exists within the market is dependent on a variety of factors both on the firm/ seller side; the number of firms, barriers to entry, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Visa Inc
Visa Inc. () is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards. Visa does not issue cards, extend credit, or set rates and fees for consumers; rather, Visa provides financial institutions with Visa-branded payment products that they then use to offer credit, debit, prepaid and cash access programs to their customers. In 2015, the Nilson Report, a publication that tracks the credit card industry, found that Visa's global network (known as VisaNet) processed 100 billion transactions during 2014 with a total volume of US$6.8 trillion. This article is authored by a ''Forbes'' staff member. Visa was founded in 1958 by Bank of America (BofA) as the BankAmericard credit card program. Available through SpringerLink. In response to competitor Master Charge (now Mastercard ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Two-party System
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the ''majority'' or ''governing party'' while the other is the ''minority'' or ''opposition party.'' Around the world, the term is used to refer to one of two kinds of party systems. Both result from Duverger's law, which demonstrates that "winner-take-all" or "first-past-the-post" elections produce two dominant parties over time.Regis PublishingThe US System: Winner Takes All Accessed August 12, 2013, "...Winner-take-all rules trigger a cycle that leads to and strengthens a system of few (two in the US) political parties..." The first type of ''two-party system'' is an arrangement in which all (or nearly all) elected officials belong to one of two major parties. In such systems, minor or third parties rarely win any seats i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plurality Voting
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which the candidates in an electoral district who poll more than any other (that is, receive a plurality) are elected. Under single-winner plurality voting, and in systems based on single-member districts, plurality voting is called single member istrictplurality (SMP), which is widely known as " first-past-the-post". In SMP/FPTP the leading candidate, whether or not they have a majority of votes, is elected. There are several versions of plurality voting for multi-member district. The system that elects multiple winners at once with the plurality rule and where each voter casts as many X votes as the number of seats in a multi-seat district is referred to as plurality block voting. A semi-proportional system that elects multiple winners elected at once with the plurality rule and where each voter casts more than one vote but fewer than the number of seats to fill in a multi-seat district is known as limited voting. A semi-prop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Two-round System
The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one or two rounds of choose-one voting, where the voter marks a single favorite candidate in each round. If no one has a majority of votes in the first round, the two candidates with the most votes in the first round move on to a second election (a second round of voting). The two-round system is in the family of plurality voting systems that also includes single-round plurality (FPP). Like instant-runoff (ranked-choice) voting and first past the post, it elects one winner. The two-round system first emerged in France and has since become the most common single-winner electoral system worldwide. Despite this, runoff-based rules like the two-round system and RCV have faced criticism from social choice theorists as a result of their suscep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Instant-runoff Voting
Instant-runoff voting (IRV; ranked-choice voting (RCV), preferential voting, alternative vote) is a single-winner ranked voting election system where Sequential loser method, one or more eliminations are used to simulate Runoff (election), runoff elections. When no candidate has a majority of the votes in the first round of counting, each following round eliminates the candidate with the fewest First-preference votes, first-preferences (among the remaining candidates) and transfers their votes if possible. This continues until one candidate accumulates a majority of the votes still in play. Instant-runoff voting falls under the plurality-based voting-rule family, in that under certain conditions the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, making use of secondary rankings as contingency votes. Thus it is related to the Runoff election, two-round runoff system and the exhaustive ballot. IRV could also be seen as a single-winner equivalent of Single transferable vote, sin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |