On Hotelling's "Stability in Competition"

Abstract

The purpose of this note is to show that the so-called Principle of Minimum Differentiation, as based on Hotelling’s 1929 paper “Stability in Competition” is invalid. The purpose of this note is to show that the so-called Principle of Minimum Differentiation, as based on Hotelling’s 1929 celebrated paper (Hotelling [3]), is invalid. Firstly, we assert that, contrary to the statement formulated by Hotelling in his model, nothing can be said about the tendency of both sellers to agglomerate at the center of the market. The reason is that no equilibrium price solution will exist when both sellers are not far enough from each other. Secondly, we consider a slightly modified version of Hotelling’s example, for which there exists a price equilibrium solution everywhere. We show however that, for this version, there is a tendency for both sellers to maximize their differentiation. This example thus constitutes a counterexample to Hotelling’s conclusions. We shall first recall Hotelling’s model and notations. On a line of length `, two sellers A and B of a homogeneous product, with zero production cost, are located at respective distances a and b from the ends of this line (a+ b ≤ `; a ≥ 0, b ≥ 0). Customers are evenly distributed along the line, and each customer consumes exactly a single unit of this commodity per unit of time, irrespective of its price. Since the product is homogeneous, a customer will buy from the seller Econometrica, 47(5), 1145–1150, September 1979. Center for Operations Research and Econometrics