the.com/cournot
the guy who figured out duopolies fight by quantity, not price, a century before game theory had a name.
means a model where competing firms choose how much to produce, each assuming rivals hold output steady, landing on a stable middle ground short of perfect competition but shy of monopoly greed.
from named for antoine augustin cournot, a french mathematician who in 1838 modeled two mineral water spring owners deciding output levels, decades before nash equilibrium gave the idea a proper mathematical home.
year published1838, in relative obscurity for decades
nash connectioncournot equilibrium is nash equilibrium, pre-dated by 112 years
original exampletwo spring owners selling mineral water
also studiedprobability, philosophy, and the word statistics itself