CONSUMER CHOICE AND COURNOT BEHAVIOR IN CAPACITY-CONSTRAINED DUOPOLY COMPETITION

In a two-stage model of duopolistic capacity choice and subsequent price competition, consumer switching costs can deter some consumers from seeking service at a low-price firm that lacks sufficient capacity to serve the entire market. In this setting, firms' residual demand functions are aggregated from the firm-selection decisions of individual consumers based on firms' prices and their induced degrees of service reliability. If consumers are approximately risk neutral with respect to service reliability, then capacity-constrained duopoly competition has a unique, subgame-perfect equilibrium in which firms choose Cournot capacities and prices. The equilibrium robustness of Cournot behavior extends to duopoly markets in which consumer switching costs are induced by subscription pricing.