Mitraille, Sébastien and Moreaux, Michel (2013) Inventories and endogenous Stackelberg leadership in two-period Cournot oligopoly. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 22 (4).

Abstract

Two-period Cournot competition between n identical firms producing at constant marginal cost and able to store before selling has pure strategy Nash-perfect equilibria, in which some firms store to exert endogenously a leadership over rivals. The number of firms storing balances market share gains, obtained by accumulating early the output, with losses in margin resulting from increased sales and higher operation costs. This number and the industry inventories are nonmonotonic in n. Concentration (HHI) and aggregate sales increase due to the strategic use of inventories.