IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/ejlwec/v38y2014i3p453-469.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tacit collusion and liability rules

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Friehe

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that the likelihood of tacit collusion in a given oligopolistic industry may depend on the kind of liability rule applied to the industry. We study typical settings for the analysis of product liability and environmental liability. For the latter, it is established that tacit collusion is more likely under strict liability than under negligence. However, the two liability rules are equivalent with regard to their effects on tacit collusion in the model pertaining to product liability. This context-dependent impact on tacit collusion can be traced back to a difference in the shape of firms’ cost functions. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Friehe, 2014. "Tacit collusion and liability rules," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 453-469, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:3:p:453-469
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-012-9346-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10657-012-9346-z
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10657-012-9346-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Canton, Joan & David, Maia & Sinclair-Desgagné, Bernard, 2012. "Environmental Regulation and Horizontal Mergers in the Eco-industry," Strategic Behavior and the Environment, now publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 107-132, July.
    2. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919.
    3. Eberhard Feess & Ulrich Hege, 2000. "Environmental Harm and Financial Responsibility*," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 25(2), pages 220-234, April.
    4. Dirk Schindler & Guttorm Schjelderup, 2009. "Harmonization of Corporate Tax Systems and Its Effect on Collusive Behavior," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(4), pages 599-621, August.
    5. Maia David & Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné, 2005. "Environmental Regulation and the Eco-Industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 141-155, September.
    6. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    7. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Products Liability, Signaling and Disclosure," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(1), pages 106-126, March.
    8. Haufler, Andreas & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 2004. "Tacit collusion and international commodity taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 577-600, March.
    9. Marino, Anthony M., 1988. "Products liability and scale effects in a long-run competitive equilibrium," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 97-107, June.
    10. Switgard Feuerstein, 2005. "Collusion in Industrial Economics—A Survey," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 163-198, December.
    11. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2014. "Cumulative Harm and Resilient Liability Rules for Product Markets," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(2), pages 371-400.
    12. Shavell, Steven, 2007. "Liability for Accidents," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 139-182, Elsevier.
    13. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    14. A. Mitchell Polinsky & William P. Rogerson, 1983. "Products Liability, Consumer Misperceptions, and Market Power," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 581-589, Autumn.
    15. Calcott, Paul & Hutton, Stephen, 2006. "The choice of a liability regime when there is a regulatory gatekeeper," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 153-164, March.
    16. Polinsky, A Mitchell, 1980. "Strict Liability vs. Negligence in a Market Setting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(2), pages 363-367, May.
    17. Kahan, Marcel, 1989. "Causation and Incentives to Take Care under the Negligence Rule," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 427-447, June.
    18. Symeonidis, George, 2002. "Cartel stability with multiproduct firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 339-352, March.
    19. Alfred Endres & Regina Bertram & Bianca Rundshagen, 2007. "Environmental Liability Law and Induced Technical Change – The Role of Discounting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(3), pages 341-366, March.
    20. Feess, E. & Hege, U., 2000. "Environmental harm and financial responsibility," Other publications TiSEM 7122a4d0-683c-49ed-a55f-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    21. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    22. Weibull, Jörgen, 2006. "Price competition and convex costs," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 622, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 23 Feb 2006.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baumann, Florian & Charreire, Maxime & Cosnita-Langlais, Andreea, 2020. "Market collusion with joint harm and liability sharing," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Eric Langlais & Maxime Charreire, 2020. "Should environment be a concern for competition policy when firms face environmental liability ?," EconomiX Working Papers 2020-25, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    3. Maxime Charreire & Eric Langlais, 2021. "Should environment be a concern for competition policy when firms face environmental liability ?," Post-Print hal-03208691, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe, 2012. "Generalized Progress of Abatement Technology: Incentives Under Environmental Liability Law," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 53(1), pages 61-71, September.
    2. Baumann, Florian & Charreire, Maxime & Cosnita-Langlais, Andreea, 2020. "Market collusion with joint harm and liability sharing," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe & Bianca Rundshagen, 2015. "Environmental liability law and R&D subsidies: results on the screening of firms and the use of uniform policy," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(4), pages 521-541, October.
    4. Tim Friehe & Eric Langlais & Elisabeth Schulte, 2022. "Firm Liability When Third Parties and Consumers Incur Cumulative Harm," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(1), pages 53-71, January.
    5. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe & Bianca Rundshagen, 2015. "“It’s All in the Mix!”- Internalizing externalities with R&D subsidies and environmental liability," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(1), pages 151-178, January.
    6. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2017. "Optimal Liability when Consumers Mispredict Product Usage," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 202-243.
    7. Dieter Schmidtchen & Jenny Helstroffer & Christian Koboldt, 2021. "Regulatory failure and the polluter pays principle: why regulatory impact assessment dominates the polluter pays principle," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(1), pages 109-144, January.
    8. Luigi Alberto Franzoni, 2016. "Correlated Accidents," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 358-384.
    9. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe, 2014. "The reasonable person standard: trading off static and dynamic efficiency," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 249-267, April.
    10. Marcel Boyer & Donatella Porrini, 2010. "Optimal liability sharing and court errors: an exploratory analysis," Working Papers hal-00463913, HAL.
    11. Baniak Andrzej & Grajzl Peter, 2013. "Equilibrium and Welfare in a Model of Torts with Industry Reputation Effects," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 265-302, October.
    12. Tim Friehe, 2008. "On judgment proofness in the case of bilateral harm," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 175-185, October.
    13. Tim Reuter, 2017. "Endogenous Cartel Organization and Antitrust Fine Discrimination," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(3), pages 291-313, November.
    14. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe & Kristoffel Grechenig, 2010. "Switching Consumers and Product Liability: On the Optimality of Incomplete Strict Liability," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_03, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    15. Baumann, Florian & Friehe, Tim & Grechenig, Kristoffel, 2011. "A note on the optimality of (even more) incomplete strict liability," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 77-82, June.
    16. Endres, Alfred & Friehe, Tim, 2011. "R&D and abatement under environmental liability law: Comparing incentives under strict liability and negligence if compensation differs from harm," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 419-425, May.
    17. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe, 2013. "Tax Evasion and Tacit Collusion," Public Finance Review, , vol. 41(5), pages 633-657, September.
    18. Maxime Charreire & Eric Langlais, 2021. "Should environment be a concern for competition policy when firms face environmental liability ?," Post-Print hal-03208691, HAL.
    19. Florian Baumann & Tim Friehe, 2010. "Product liability and the virtues of asymmetric information," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 100(1), pages 19-32, May.
    20. Alfred Endres & Tim Friehe, 2015. "The Compensation Regime in Liability Law: Incentives to Curb Environmental Harm, Ex Ante and Ex Post," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(1), pages 105-123, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tacit collusion; Cartel; Liability law; L41; L13; K13;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:3:p:453-469. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.