Stability of the Cournot process – experimental evidence

We report results of experiments designed to test the predictions of the best-reply process. In a Cournot oligopoly with four firms, the best-reply process should theoretically explode if demand and cost functions are linear. We find, however, no experimental evidence of such instability. Moreover, we find no differences between a market which theoretically should not converge to Nash equilibrium and one which should converge because of inertia. We investigate the power of several learning dynamics to explain this unpredicted stability.