Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213523 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 1126
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
This paper is about technology choices in a differentiated oligopoly. The main questions are: whether the position in the product space affects the choice of technology, how changes in fixed costs affect price outcomes, the strategic responses to policy interventions. The industry is an oligopoly where a central firm is competing with two peripheral (or marginal) ones. The former is shown to be more ready than the latter to adopt a technology with low marginal costs and high fixed costs (Increasing Returns to Scale) rather than one with the opposite pattern (Constant Returns to Scale). The fixed cost in the IRS affects the technology configuration and hence output prices. For instance, a lower fixed cost may trigger lower prices and it is neutral only for given technologies. A price-cap may forestall a change in technologies; nondiscriminatory ad-valorem tax and taxes on variable input, or discriminatory unit taxes can also affect the technology pattern and deliver important effects on prices.
Subjects: 
Oligopoly
technology
price dynamics
policy intervention
JEL: 
D43
L11
L13
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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