Dynamic Bertrand competition with intertemporal demand

In the text-book model of dynamic Bertrand competition, competing firms meet the same demand function every period. This is not a satisfactory model of the demand side if consumers can make intertemporal substitution between periods. Each period then leaves some residual demand to future periods, and consumers who observe price under-cutting may correctly anticipate en ensuing price war and therefore postpone their purchases. Accordingly, the interaction between the firms no longer constitutes a repeated game, and hence falls outside the domain of the usual Folk theorems. <p> We analyze collusive pricing in such situations, and study cases when consumers have perfect and imperfect foresight and varying degrees of patience. It turns out that collusion against patient and forward-looking consumers is easier to sustain than collusion in the text-book model.