IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/ueaccp/2015_01v2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Post-Cartel Tacit Collusion: Determinants, Consequences, and Prevention

Author

Listed:
  • Subhasish M. Chowdhury

    (Centre for Competition Policy, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science and School of Economics, University of East Anglia)

  • Carsten J. Crede

    (Centre for Competition Policy, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science and School of Economics, University of East Anglia)

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the attributes and effects of post-cartel tacit collusion (PCTC) as well as policy measures aimed at its prevention. PCTC occurs irrespective of the absence or presence of an antitrust authority and in different competition regimes. PCTC is determined both by collusive price hysteresis and learning about cartel partners’ characteristics and strategies. As a result, it is strongly related with the preceding cartel success. The estimation of cartel overcharges, an important factor in litigation, is found out to be biased downwards in the presence of PCTC. As a policy note, we show that debarment of managers involved in cartels from the market can prevent PCTC.

Suggested Citation

  • Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Carsten J. Crede, 2015. "Post-Cartel Tacit Collusion: Determinants, Consequences, and Prevention," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2015-01v2, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
  • Handle: RePEc:uea:ueaccp:2015_01v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/ccp/CCP-15-01v2.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carsten J. Crede & Liang Lu, 2016. "The effects of endogenous enforcement on strategic uncertainty and cartel deterrence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 16-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Bos Iwan & Letterie Wilko & Vermeulen Dries, 2015. "Antitrust as Facilitating Factor for Collusion," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 797-814, April.
    3. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gneezy, Uri, 2000. "Price competition and market concentration: an experimental study," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 7-22, January.
    4. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2004. "Two are few and four are many: number effects in experimental oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 435-446, April.
    5. Bryant, Peter G & Eckard, E Woodrow, Jr, 1991. "Price Fixing: The Probability of Getting Caught," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(3), pages 531-536, August.
    6. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    7. Baker, Jonathan B & Rubinfeld, Daniel L, 1999. "Empirical Methods in Antitrust Litigation: Review and Critique," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 1(1-2), pages 386-435, Fall.
    8. Martin, Stephen, 2006. "Competition policy, collusion, and tacit collusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1299-1332, November.
    9. Gillet, Joris & Schram, Arthur & Sonnemans, Joep, 2011. "Cartel formation and pricing: The effect of managerial decision-making rules," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 126-133, January.
    10. Jose Apesteguia & Martin Dufwenberg & Reinhard Selten, 2007. "Blowing the Whistle," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 31(1), pages 143-166, April.
    11. Foster, Dean P. & Young, H. Peyton, 2003. "Learning, hypothesis testing, and Nash equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 73-96, October.
    12. Motta, Massimo & Polo, Michele, 2003. "Leniency programs and cartel prosecution," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 347-379, March.
    13. H. Peyton Young, 2007. "The Possible and the Impossible in Multi-Agent Learning," Economics Series Working Papers 304, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    14. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, April.
    15. Maria Bigoni & Sven-Olof Fridolfsson & Chloé Le Coq & Giancarlo Spagnolo, 2015. "Trust, Leniency, and Deterrence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 663-689.
    16. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2004. "Cartel Pricing Dynamics in the Presence of an Antitrust Authority," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(4), pages 651-673, Winter.
    17. Davies, Stephen & Olczak, Matthew & Coles, Heather, 2011. "Tacit collusion, firm asymmetries and numbers: Evidence from EC merger cases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 221-231, March.
    18. Stephen Davies & Peter L. Ormosi & Martin Graffenberger, 2014. "Mergers after cartels: How markets react to cartel breakdown," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2014-01, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    19. Isaac, R Mark & Walker, James M, 1988. "Communication and Free-Riding Behavior: The Voluntary Contribution Mechanism," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 585-608, October.
    20. Carsten J. Crede, 2019. "A Structural Break Cartel Screen for Dating and Detecting Collusion," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(3), pages 543-574, May.
    21. de Roos, Nicolas, 2006. "Examining models of collusion: The market for lysine," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1083-1107, November.
    22. Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), 2018. "Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16609.
    23. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    24. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2014. "Endogenous cartel formation: Experimental evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 223-225.
    25. Joseph E. Harrington, 2004. "Post‐Cartel Pricing During Litigation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 517-533, December.
    26. Maria Bigoni & Sven-Olof Fridolfsson & Chloé Le Coq & Giancarlo Spagnolo, 2012. "fines, leniency, and rewards in antitrust," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(2), pages 368-390, June.
    27. Douglas Ginsburg & Joshua Wright, 2010. "Antitrust Sanctions," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 6.
    28. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    29. Pedro Dal Bó, 2005. "Cooperation under the Shadow of the Future: Experimental Evidence from Infinitely Repeated Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1591-1604, December.
    30. Douglas Davis & Oleg Korenok & Robert Reilly, 2010. "Cooperation without coordination: signaling, types and tacit collusion in laboratory oligopolies," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(1), pages 45-65, March.
    31. Dreber, Anna & Fudenberg, Drew & Rand, David G., 2014. "Who cooperates in repeated games: The role of altruism, inequity aversion, and demographics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 41-55.
    32. José Manuel Ordóñez-de-Haro & José Luis Torres, 2014. "Price Hysteresis After Antitrust Enforcement: Evidence From Spanish Food Markets," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 217-256.
    33. Andrew Bell & Malcolm Fairbrother & Kelvyn Jones, 2019. "Fixed and random effects models: making an informed choice," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 1051-1074, March.
    34. Douglas Davis & Oleg Korenok & Robert Reilly, 2009. "Re-matching, information and sequencing effects in posted offer markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(1), pages 65-86, March.
    35. Catarina Marvão & Giancarlo Spagnolo, 2018. "Cartels and leniency: Taking stock of what we learnt," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume II, chapter 4, pages 57-90, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    36. John Connor, 2001. "“Our Customers Are Our Enemies”: The Lysine Cartel of 1992–1995," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 18(1), pages 5-21, February.
    37. Banerjee, Anindya & Galbraith, John W & Dolado, Juan, 1990. "Dynamic Specification and Linear Transformations of the Autoregressive-Distributed Lag Model," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(1), pages 95-104, February.
    38. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    39. Peter Davis & Eliana Garcés, 2009. "Quantitative Techniques for Competition and Antitrust Analysis," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9078.
    40. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    41. Cason, Timothy N., 1995. "Cheap talk price signaling in laboratory markets," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 183-204, June.
    42. Erutku, Can, 2012. "Testing post-cartel pricing during litigation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 339-342.
    43. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2012. "Explicit vs. tacit collusion—The impact of communication in oligopoly experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1759-1772.
    44. Bresnahan, Timothy F & Reiss, Peter C, 1991. "Entry and Competition in Concentrated Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 977-1009, October.
    45. Ivaldi, Marc & Jullien, Bruno & Rey, Patrick & Seabright, Paul & Tirole, Jean, 2003. "The Economics of Tacit Collusion," IDEI Working Papers 186, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    46. Harrington, Joseph E. & Zhao, Wei, 2012. "Signaling and tacit collusion in an infinitely repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 277-289.
    47. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    48. Hamaguchi, Yasuyo & Kawagoe, Toshiji & Shibata, Aiko, 2009. "Group size effects on cartel formation and the enforcement power of leniency programs," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 145-165, March.
    49. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    50. Kwoka, John E, Jr, 1979. "The Effect of Market Share Distribution on Industry Performance," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(1), pages 101-109, February.
    51. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr. & Wei Zhao, 2012. "Signaling and Tacit Collusion in an Infinitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma," Economics Working Paper Archive 587, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    52. Jeroen Hinloopen & Adriaan R. Soetevent, 2008. "Laboratory evidence on the effectiveness of corporate leniency programs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 607-616, June.
    53. Mouraviev, Igor, 2006. "Private Observation, Tacit Collusion and Collusion with Communication," Working Paper Series 672, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    54. John M. Connor, 1998. "The global citric acid conspiracy: Legal-economic lessons," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(6), pages 435-452.
    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. Kyung Hwan Baik & Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Abhijit Ramalingam, 2021. "Group size and matching protocol in contests," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 1716-1736, November.
    2. Stadler, Manfred & Güth, Werner & Zaby, Alexandra, 2016. "Capacity precommitment and price transparency platforms. Theoretical benchmark and experimental evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145515, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Anastasia Danilov & Martin G. Kocher, 2023. "The Lifecycle of Affirmative Action Policies and Its Effect on Effort and Sabotage Behavior," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 401, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    4. Joris Gillet, 2021. "Is Voting for a Cartel a Sign of Cooperativeness?," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-10, June.
    5. Carsten J. Crede & Liang Lu, 2016. "The effects of endogenous enforcement on strategic uncertainty and cartel deterrence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 16-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Gillet, Joris, 2017. "Voting For a Cartel as a Sign of Cooperativeness," MPRA Paper 82160, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Tebbe, Eva, 2018. "Once bitten, twice shy? Market size affects the effectiveness of a leniency program by (de-)activating hysteresis effects," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168304, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association, revised 2018.
    8. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Gonçalves, Ricardo & Pinho, Joana & Tabacco, Giovanni A., 2022. "How do antitrust regimes impact on cartel formation and managers’ labor market? An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 643-662.

    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. Carsten J. Crede & Liang Lu, 2016. "The effects of endogenous enforcement on strategic uncertainty and cartel deterrence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 16-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    2. Peter T. Dijkstra & Marco A. Haan & Lambert Schoonbeek, 2021. "Leniency Programs and the Design of Antitrust: Experimental Evidence with Free-Form Communication," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(1), pages 13-36, August.
    3. Bodnar, Olivia & Fremerey, Melinda & Normann, Hans-Theo & Schad, Jannika Leonie, 2021. "The effects of private damage claims on cartel activity: Experimental evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 315, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), revised 2021.
    4. Nick Feltovich & Yasuyo Hamaguchi, 2018. "The Effect of Whistle‐Blowing Incentives on Collusion: An Experimental Study of Leniency Programs," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(4), pages 1024-1049, April.
    5. Andres, Maximilian & Bruttel, Lisa & Friedrichsen, Jana, 2021. "The leniency rule revisited: Experiments on cartel formation with open communication," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Tebbe, Eva, 2018. "Once bitten, twice shy? Market size affects the effectiveness of a leniency program by (de-)activating hysteresis effects," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168304, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association, revised 2018.
    7. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2012. "Explicit vs. tacit collusion—The impact of communication in oligopoly experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1759-1772.
    8. Maximilian Andres & Lisa Bruttel & Jana Friedrichsen, 2019. "The Effect of a Leniency Rule on Cartel Formation and Stability: Experiments with Open Communication," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1835, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    10. Gomez-Martinez, Francisco, 2016. "Partial Cartels and Mergers with Heterogeneous Firms: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 81132, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jul 2017.
    11. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2013. "Oligopoly Experiments In The Current Millennium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 439-460, July.
    12. Normann, Hans-Theo & Rösch, Jürgen & Schultz, Luis Manuel, 2015. "Do buyer groups facilitate collusion?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 72-84.
    13. Gomez-Martinez, Francisco, 2017. "Partial Cartels and Mergers with Heterogenous Firms: Experimental Evidence," EconStor Preprints 169380, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    14. Harrington, Joseph E. & Hernan Gonzalez, Roberto & Kujal, Praveen, 2016. "The relative efficacy of price announcements and express communication for collusion: Experimental findings," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 251-264.
    15. Fischer, Christian & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2019. "Collusion and bargaining in asymmetric Cournot duopoly—An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 360-379.
    16. Georg Clemens & Holger A. Rau, 2022. "Either with us or against us: experimental evidence on partial cartels," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(2), pages 237-257, September.
    17. Cerrone, Claudia & Hermstrüwer, Yoan & Robalo, Pedro, 2021. "Debarment and collusion in procurement auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 114-143.
    18. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Frederick Wandschneider, 2013. "Anti-trust and the ‘Beckerian Proposition’: the Effects of Investigation and Fines on Cartels," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-09, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    19. Normann, Hans-Theo & Rösch, Jürgen & Schultz, Luis Manuel, 2012. "Do buyer groups facilitate collusion?," DICE Discussion Papers 74, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    20. Gomez-Martinez, Francisco, 2016. "Partial Cartels and Mergers with Heterogeneous Firms: Experimental Evidence," MPRA Paper 81132, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jul 2017.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tacit collusion; antitrust; cartels; price hysteresis; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices

    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:uea:ueaccp:2015_01v2. 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: Juliette Hardmad (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.html .

    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.