Necessary and sufficient condition for equilibrium of the Hotelling model

Abstract

We study a model of vendors competing to sell a homogeneous product to customers spread evenly along a linear city. This model is based on Hotelling's celebrated paper in 1929. Our aim in this paper is to present a necessary and sufficient condition for the equilibrium. This yields a representation for the equilibrium. To achieve this, we first formulate the model mathematically. Next, we prove that the condition holds if and only if vendors are equilibrium.