Exploring Strategic Behavior in an Oligopoly Market Using Classroom Clickers

This article discusses an innovative technique to teach strategic behavior in oligopoly markets. In the classroom exercise, students play the role of a firm that maximizes its profit given the behavior of other firms in the industry. Using classroom clickers to communicate pricing decisions, students explore first-hand the strategic nature of decision-making in an oligopoly market. Students see the diversity of equilibrium outcomes that can be supported in an oligopoly setting and better understand the conditions that lead to one equilibrium over another. The game also illustrates different game theoretic concepts such as the Nash equilibrium (Nash 1950, 1951) and backward induction. The exercise is designed for use in an intermediate microeconomics class, although the technique and exercise could be modified for other courses that examine strategic behavior.