The paper addresses a transport market consisting of two firms with goals extending beyond pure profit maximisation. Considering that transport companies often have public owners and that managers have different objective that the owners, it is argued the firms maximise a weighted sum of profits, revenues and total consumer surplus. The paper analyses equilibrium fares and quantities arising from collusion and competition on price (Bertrand) and quantity (Cournot), when the firms produce symmetrically differentiable services and have identical cost and goal functions. Special focus is given to analyzing how the firms’ costs, the degree of substitutability and complementarity between their services and their goal functions influence equilibrium prices in the three different competitive situations. The influence of parameters included in the model regarding the differences between the equilibrium prices is also addressed. The study provides relevant knowledge for transport authorities of how transport firms respond to changes in competitive regimes depending on their objectives and competitive situation.
Document type: Article
The different versions of the original document can be found in:
Published on 01/01/2013
Volume 2013, 2013
DOI: 10.1007/s12544-013-0125-x
Licence: Other
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