Endogenous Stackelberg leadership

TLDR: In this paper, the authors consider a 2-stage game in which each player can either commit to a quantity in stage 1 or wait till stage 2, and they show that committing is more risky for the high cost firm and that, consequently, risk dominance considerations, as in Harsanyi and Selten (1988), allow the conclusion that only the low cost firm will choose to commit.

Abstract: We consider a linear quantity setting duopoly game and analyze which of the players will commit when both players have the possibility to do so. To that end, we study a 2-stage game in which each player can either commit to a quantity in stage 1 or wait till stage 2. We show that committing is more risky for the high cost firm and that, consequently, risk dominance considerations, as in Harsanyi and Selten (1988), allow the conclusion that only the low cost firm will choose to commit. Hence, the low cost firm will emerge as the endogenous Stackelberg leader.