This paper advocates a generalized N-firm Stackelberg model as a plausible testable alternative description of oligopoly. A pure-strategy equilibrium must exist for this model. The main result is that efficiency obtains in the limit as the scale of each firm is shrunk relative to demand. This is demonstrated for the case of U-shaped average cost and also for that of natural monopoly. Copyright 1990 by American Economic Association.

This paper investigates the evolutionary foundation for our ability to attribute preferences to others, an ability that is central to conventional game theory. We argue here that learning others' preferences allows individuals to efficiently modify their behavior in strategic environments with a persistent element of novelty. Agents with the ability to learn have a sharp, unambiguous advantage over those who are less sophisticated because the former agents extrapolate to novel circumstances information about opponents' preferences that was learned previously. This advantage holds even with a suitably small cost to reflect the additional cognitive complexity involved. (JEL C73, D11, D83)