Heinrich von Stackelberg - Market Structure and Equilibrium

In his book „Marktform und Gleichgewicht“, published initially in 1934, Heinrich von Stackelberg presented his groundbreaking leadership model of firm competition. In a work of great originality and richness, he described and analyzed a market situation in which the leader firm moves first and the follower firms then move sequentially. This game-theoretic model, now widely known as Stackelberg competition, has had tremendous impact on the theory of the firm and economic analysis in general, and has been applied to study decision-making in various fields of business. As the first translation of von Stackelberg’s book into English, this volume makes his classic work available in its original form to an English-speaking audience for the very first time.

Review
I am very pleased about the fact that Heinrich von Stackelberg’s book “Market Structure and Equilibrium” is now available in English. This book is of great importance for the history of economic thought. The “Stackelberg Solution” can be found in every textbook, and it is interesting to look at the original text in order to see how von Stackelberg himself dealt with it.
- Reinhard Selten, Nobel Laureate in Economics 1994

Heinrich von Stackelberg’s model of duopoly is a linchpin of the theory of industrial organization. Indeed, this model and those of Augustin Cournot and Joseph Bertrand together constitute the most important historical milestones in our understanding of strategic imperfect competition. It is notable that the Stackelberg model anticipated subgame perfect equilibrium many years before that concept’s development in the game theory literature. Suprisingly, no English language version of Stackelberg’s masterwork Marktform und Gleichgewicht has previously been available. But, fortunately, Damien Bazin has now given us a splendid translation.
- Eric S. Maskin, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2007