Following the structure of many commodity markets, we consider a few large firms and a competitive fringe of many small suppliers choosing quantities in an infinite-horizon setting subject to demand shocks. We show that a collusive agreement among the large firms may not only bring an output contraction but also an output expansion (relative to the noncollusive output level). The latter occurs during booms, when the fringe’s market share is more important, and is due to the strategic substitutability of quantities (we will never observe an output-expanding collusion in a price-setting game). In addition and depending on the fringe’s market share the time at which maximal collusion is most difficult to sustain can be either at booms or recessions.
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Paper provided by Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. in its series Documentos de Trabajo with number
298.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Kyle Bagwell & Robert W. Staiger, 1995.
"Collusion Over the Business Cycle,"
Discussion Papers
1118, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
[Downloadable!]
Matti Liski & Juan-Pablo Montero, 2005.
"Forward trading and collusion in oligopoly,"
Working Papers
0506, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
[Downloadable!]
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