0:56
And if there are lots of firms, and if price is above ten cents, okay, it's
profitable to produce a pencil, so lots of firms would like to produce pencils.
So supply is infinite if price is strictly above ten cents, and
if price is below ten cents, strictly below ten cents it doesn't make sense to
produce pencil, so supply is zero, and if price is exactly equal to ten cents,
then you are indifferent between, you don't mind producing pencil.
So therefore, economics textbooks say that supply is a flat curve, 'kay.
If price is equal to ten cents, you have lots of supply.
This is the supply curve when there are lots of firsts.
3:17
So I'm going to assume that firms chooses their output, how much to produce,
and this situation was originally analyzed by a French economist in
19th Century, Cournot.
So this game is sometimes called the Cournot game, okay, so
let's examine your profit.
Your profit partly depends on how much you, how much is your profit per pencil.
Okay, so it's price minus quantity and it's going to be given by this formula.
So, let me explain the notation.
Q, small q here, is your output, okay, and
large Q here is other firms' total output.
Okay, and this part is equal to market price because price is given by the demand
curve, and the demand is equal to a minus b times total production, total output,
and total output, X, is a summation of new output and the other firms' total output.
So this is your profit if you produce one pencil, okay?
So therefore if you, if your output is q,
4:35
Is it clear?
Okay, so you can just rewrite this formula in this way.
So this is your profit.
So let's draw a diagram of your profit, okay, so
your profit is a function of your output, q, small q.
So this is equal to constant times your profit,
times your output, okay, so your pro, out,
your profit is equal to constant times q minus constant times q times q.
Okay, this is what is called quadratic equation, and
the graph of quadratic function looks like this, 'kay.
It, it's a very simple graph with a single peak, and it's symmetric.
Okay, so this graph partly depends on other firms' total output.
7:02
Since all firms are identical they have the same unit cost and
Nash equilibrium has the property that every firm produces the same amount, okay?
So let's say q star is the Nash equilibrium output of each firm and
the definition of Nash equilibrium says that this should be mutual best reply.
So if other firms are producing q star it's your best reply to
produce the same amount, q star.
So let's write down the best reply, relationship, by means of equation.
So you are producing q star, that should be a best reply to other people
producing q star, and we have already calculated the best reply function.
It's half of this number here, a minus c over
b minus total output of the remaining firms, okay,
so since there are n firms, the number of other firms is n-1,
and each of those n-1 firms are producing q star of Nash equilibrium,
so therefore this is what we denoted by large Q,
the total quantity of other firms, and this is your best reply, and
at the Nash equilibrium everybody's best responding each other, okay?
So this is a simple equation.
One equation and you have one known q star, so you can solve for q star.
So, let's do that.
So let's multiply both sides by 2.
So 2 times q star is equal to a minus c divided by
b minus n minus 1 and q star, okay, so
you move this term from right to left,
and what you have here is N plus 1 times q star,
equals to this number here, a minus c divided by b, okay.
So therefore q star is equal to 1 over n
plus 1 times this number here, a minus c, divided by b, okay.
So therefore, the total output at
the Nash equilibrium was N firms is N times this number, so
N over N plus 1 times this number here, a minus c divided by b, okay?
So let me just rewrite this part, N over N plus 1,
so N is equal to N plus 1 minus 1.
That's the numerator.
The denominator is N time, N plus 1, so
this is equal to, say, 1 minus, 1 over N plus 1.
Okay, so if you have N firms, total production is this type
this quantity times this number here, so by using the power of math we
have identified that the total output when N firms present in the market,
and let's compare this result with perfectly competitive market.
Again, this is a picture of perfectly competitive market, and in the perfect
competition, total output is this yellow number here, and on the other hand oh,
in contrast, if you have N firms, we have calculated the total output, and
it's all, it's equal to this number, okay, and as you can see,
as N increases, this part here, 1 over N plus 1, decreases sharply.
So everything is quickly brought into this yellow number.
So let me show you several cases.
If N is equal to 1, the quantity is small and
the price is higher, but an, as N increases, the total
output quickly converges to competitive equilibrium total output, 'kay?
So Nash Equilibrium sets the following things.
If there are few firms in the market, price is very high and quantity is small,
but as the number of firms increase, price goes down and eventually it converges
to competitive, perfect competitive market equilibrium, okay?
So, large number of firms actually implies perfect competition.
This is the prediction by Nash equilibrium.
So by using the concept of Nash equilibrium,
and by using the power of math to find Nash equilibrium,
we have derived the Law of Market Competition in economics.