Cooperation without Coordination: Signaling, Types and Tacit Collusion in Laboratory Oligopolies
Abstract
We study the effects of price signaling activity and underlying propensities to cooperate on tacit collusion in posted offer markets. The primary experiment consists of an extensively repeated baseline sequence and a 'forecast' sequence that adds to the baseline a forecasting game that allows identification of signaling intentions. Forecast sequence results indicate that signaling intentions considerably exceed those that are counted under a standard signal measure based on previous period prices. Nevertheless, we find essentially no correlation between either measure of signal volumes and collusive efficiency. A second experiment demonstrates that underlying seller propensities to cooperate more clearly affect collusiveness.Download Info
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Paper provided by VCU School of Business, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 0702.Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2007
Date of revision: Sep 2009
Handle: RePEc:vcu:wpaper:0702
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Related research
Keywords: Experiments; Tacit Collusion; Price Signaling; Types;Other versions of this item:
- Douglas Davis & Oleg Korenok & Robert Reilly, 2010. "Cooperation without coordination: signaling, types and tacit collusion in laboratory oligopolies," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 45-65, March.
- C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
- L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
- L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-03-17 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBE-2007-03-17 (Cognitive & Behavioural Economics)
- NEP-COM-2007-03-17 (Industrial Competition)
- NEP-EXP-2007-03-17 (Experimental Economics)
- NEP-MIC-2007-03-17 (Microeconomics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Douglas D. Davis & Oleg Korenok, 2005.
"Posted - Offer Markets In Near Continuous Time: an Experimental Investigation,"
Working Papers
0504, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics, revised 2007.
- Douglas D. Davis & Oleg Korenok, 2009. "Posted Offer Markets In Near-Continuous Time: An Experimental Investigation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 449-466, 07.
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- Gunnthorsdottir, Anna & Houser, Daniel & McCabe, Kevin, 2007. "Disposition, history and contributions in public goods experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 304-315, February.
- Roberto Burlando & Francesco Guala, 2005. "Heterogeneous Agents in Public Goods Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 35-54, April.
- Smith, Vernon L & Suchanek, Gerry L & Williams, Arlington W, 1988. "Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1119-51, September.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Douglas D. Davis, 2006.
"Pure Numbers Effects, Market Power, and Tacit Collusion in Posted Offer Markets,"
Working Papers
0603, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2009.
- Davis, Douglas, 2009. "Pure numbers effects, market power, and tacit collusion in posted offer markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 475-488, October.
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