IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v125y2014i2p156-159.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cartel size and collusive stability with non-capitalistic players

Author

Listed:
  • Delbono, Flavio
  • Lambertini, Luca

Abstract

A well established belief both in the game-theoretic IO and in policy debates is that market concentration facilitates collusion. We show that this piece of conventional wisdom relies upon the assumption of profit-seeking behaviour, for it may be reversed when firms pursue other plausible goals. To illustrate our intuition, we investigate the incentives to tacit collusion in an industry formed by labour-managed (LM) enterprises. We characterise the perfect equilibrium of a supergame in which LM firms play an infinitely repeated Cournot game under grim trigger strategies. We show that the critical threshold of the discount factor above which collusion is stable (i) is lower in the LM industry than in the capitalistic one; (ii) monotonically decreases with the number of firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Delbono, Flavio & Lambertini, Luca, 2014. "Cartel size and collusive stability with non-capitalistic players," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 156-159.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:125:y:2014:i:2:p:156-159
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.08.036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176514003346
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2014.08.036?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    2. Flavio DELBONO & Carlo REGGIANI, 2013. "Cooperative Firms And The Crisis: Evidence From Some Italian Mixed Oligopolies," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(4), pages 383-397, December.
    3. Hill, Martyn & Waterson, Michael, 1983. "Labor-managed Cournot oligopoly and industry output," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 43-51, March.
    4. Delbono, Flavio & Rossini, Gianpaolo, 1992. "Competition policy vs horizontal merger with public, entrepreneurial, and labor-managed firms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 226-240, June.
    5. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Abreu, Dilip, 1986. "Extremal equilibria of oligopolistic supergames," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 191-225, June.
    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. Guido Caselli & Michele Costa & Flavio Delbono, 2022. "What do cooperative firms maximize, if at all? Evidence from Emilia‐Romagna in the pre‐Covid decade," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(4), pages 821-847, December.
    2. Filipa Mota & João Correia-da-Silva & Joana Pinho, 2023. "Public–Private Collusion," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 62(4), pages 393-417, June.
    3. Ying Fan & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Zan Yang, 2022. "Financial conditions, local competition, and local market leaders: The case of real estate developers," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 131-193, May.
    4. Flavio Delbono & Diego Lanzi & Carlo Reggiani, 2022. "Beyond Illyria: Workers' Firm in Mixed Oligopoly," Working Papers wp1170, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    5. Swoboda, Sandra Maria, 2017. "Einfluss ausgewählter Determinanten auf die Kartellbildung und -stabilität: Eine Literaturstudie," Arbeitspapiere 176, University of Münster, Institute for Cooperatives.
    6. Delbono, Flavio & Lanzi, Diego & Reggiani, Carlo, 2023. "Workers’ firm in mixed duopoly," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    7. Flavio Delbono, 2016. "Le cooperative di produzione e la stabilit? occupazionale," QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(105), pages 166-177.

    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. Jeanine Miklós-Thal, 2011. "Optimal collusion under cost asymmetry," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 46(1), pages 99-125, January.
    2. Hélder Vasconcelos, 2008. "Sustaining Collusion in Growing Markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 973-1010, December.
    3. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    4. Pierre-Pascal Gendron, 1996. "Corporation Tax Asymmetries: An Oligopolistic Supergame Analysis," Working Papers ecpap-96-04, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    5. Lambertini, Luca & Marattin, Luigi, 2021. "On prices’ cyclical behaviour in oligopolistic markets," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 79-86.
    6. Lagos, Vicente, 2017. "Assessment of post-merger coordinated effects: Characterization by simulationsAuthor-Name: Ivaldi, Marc," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 267-305.
    7. Flavio Delbono, 2016. "Le cooperative di produzione e la stabilit? occupazionale," QUADERNI DI ECONOMIA DEL LAVORO, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(105), pages 166-177.
    8. Marie‐Laure Cabon‐Dhersin & Nicolas Drouhin, 2014. "Tacit Collusion in a One‐Shot Game of Price Competition with Soft Capacity Constraints," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 427-442, June.
    9. Allain, Marie-Laure & Boyer, Marcel & Kotchoni, Rachidi & Ponssard, Jean-Pierre, 2015. "Are cartel fines optimal? Theory and evidence from the European Union," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-47.
    10. Stefano Colombo, 2009. "The unidirectional Hotelling model with spatial price discrimination," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 3031-3040.
    11. Carlo Capuano & Iacopo Grassi & Riccardo Martina, 2020. "Patent protection and threat of litigation in oligopoly," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 130(2), pages 109-131, July.
    12. Patrick Van Cayseele & Andreas Bovin, 2022. "By Object or by Effect? The Collusive Potential of First Refusal Contracts," LICOS Discussion Papers 43022, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    13. Colombo, Luca & Labrecciosa, Paola, 2006. "Optimal punishments with detection lags," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 198-201, August.
    14. Marcel Canoy & Patrick Rey & Eric van Damme, 2004. "Dominance and Monopolization," Chapters, in: Manfred Neumann & Jürgen Weigand (ed.), The International Handbook of Competition, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Marcelo Resende & Rodrigo M. Zeidan, 2011. "Tacit Collusion under Imperfect Monitoring in the Canadian Manufacturing Industry: An Empirical Study," CESifo Working Paper Series 3623, CESifo.
    16. 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.
    17. F. Delbono & L. Lambertini, 2016. "On Globally Optimal Punishments in the Repeated Cournot Game," Working Papers wp1091, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    18. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    19. António Brandão & Joana Pinho & Hélder Vasconcelos, 2014. "Asymmetric Collusion with Growing Demand," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 429-472, December.
    20. Garrod, Luke, 2012. "Collusive price rigidity under price-matching punishments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 471-482.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cartel stability; Labour-managed firms; Repeated game;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
    • C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory

    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:eee:ecolet:v:125:y:2014:i:2:p:156-159. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.