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Working Paper
Markov perfect industry dynamics with many firms
We propose an approximation method for analyzing Ericson and Pakes (1995)-style dynamic models of imperfect competition. We develop a simple algorithm for computing an "oblivious equilibrium," in which each firm is assumed to make decisions based only on its own state and knowledge of the long run average industry state, but where firms ignore current information about competitors' states. We prove that, as the market becomes large, if the equilibrium distribution of firm states obeys a certain "lighttail" condition, then oblivious equilibria closely approximate Markov perfect equilibria. We ...