We reexamine the profitability and social efficiency of horizontal mergers in a Cournot oligopoly with decreasing average costs. Assuming the merger allows for efficiency gains in production, we identify the conditions under which the merger is, respectively, profitable and socially desirable....

We consider the joint effect of profit and Pigouvian taxation in a model of imperfect competition. We show that, when both profit taxation and Pigouvian taxation/subsidy are used, the former is no longer neutral. The two fiscal tools are substitutes, and for any profit taxation rate there exists...

We model the interplay between capital accumulation for production and environmental externalities in a differential oligopoly game with Ramsey dynamics. The external effect is determined, alternatively, by sales or production. While the externality does not affect the behaviour of...

We identify a class of noncooperative games in continuous strategies which are best-response potential games. We identify the conditions for the existence of a best-response potential function and characterise its construction, describing then the key properties of the equilibrium. The...

We revisit the debate on the optimal number of firms in the commons in a differential oligopoly game in which firms are either quantity- or price-setting agents. Production exploits a natural resource and involves a negative externality. We calculate the number of firms maximizing industry...

The established view on oligopolistic competition with environmental externalities has it that, since firms neglect the external effect, their incentive to invest in R&D for pollution abatement is nil unless they are subject to some form of environmental taxation. We take a dynamic approach to...

We propose a simple method for characterising analytically the feedback solution of oligopoly games with capital accumulation à la Solow-Swan. As a result, it becomes possible to contrast the feedback equilibrium against the corresponding one generated by open-loop information. Our method...

We investigate the possibility of using public firms to regulate polluting emissions in a Cournot oligopoly where production takes place at constant returns to scale and entails a negative environmental externality. We model the problem as a differential game and investigate (i) the Cournot-Nash...