IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jcomle/v3y2007i4p491-549..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Much Collusion? A Meta-Analysis Of Oligopoly Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Engel

Abstract

Oligopoly has been among the first topics in experimental economics. Over half a century, some 150 papers have been published. Each individual paper was interested in demonstrating one effect, but in order to do so, experimenters had to specify many more parameters. Thus they have generated a huge body of evidence, untapped so far. This meta-analysis makes this evidence available. More than 100 of the papers lend themselves to calculating an index of collusion. The database behind this paper covers some 500 different settings. The experimental results may be normalized as a percentage of the span between the Walrasian and the Pareto outcomes. In the same way, results may be expressed as a percentage of the distance between the Nash and the Pareto outcomes. For each and every one of the parameters, these two indices make it possible to answer two questions: How far is the market outcome away from the competitive equilibrium? And how good is the Nash prediction? Most importantly, however, the meta-analysis sheds light on how features of the experimental setting interact with each other. Most main effects and many interaction effects are indeed statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Engel, 2007. "How Much Collusion? A Meta-Analysis Of Oligopoly Experiments," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 491-549.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jcomle:v:3:y:2007:i:4:p:491-549.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/joclec/nhm016
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Dan Alger, 1987. "Laboratory Tests of Equilibrium Predictions with Disequilibrium Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(1), pages 105-145.
    2. Allen, Beth & Hellwig, Martin, 1986. "Price-Setting Firms and the Oligopolistic Foundations of Perfect Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 387-392, May.
    3. Vital Anderhub & Werner Güth & Ulrich Kamecke & Hans-Theo Normann, 2003. "Capacity Choices and Price Competition in Experimental Markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(1), pages 27-52, June.
    4. Benson, Bruce L. & Faminow, M. D., 1988. "The impact of experience on prices and profits in experimental duopoly markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 345-365, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Puzzello, Daniela, 2008. "Tie-breaking rules and divisibility in experimental duopoly markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 164-179, July.
    2. Garcia Gallego, Aurora, 1998. "Oligopoly experimentation of learning with simulated markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 333-355, April.
    3. Pitassi, Cristina & Hey, John D., 1995. "Market entry: An experimental investigation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 21-49.
    4. Attar, Andrea & Mariotti, Thomas & Salanié, François, 2019. "On competitive nonlinear pricing," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    5. Jacobs, Martin & Requate, Till, 2016. "Bertrand-Edgeworth markets with increasing marginal costs and voluntary trading: Experimental evidence," Economics Working Papers 2016-01, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    6. 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.
    7. Werner Güth & Manfred Stadler & Alexandra Zaby, 2020. "Capacity precommitment, communication, and collusive pricing: theoretical benchmark and experimental evidence," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(2), pages 495-524, June.
    8. Requate, Till, 1998. "Incentives to innovate under emission taxes and tradeable permits," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 139-165, February.
    9. Andrei Y. Shastitko & Svetlana V. Golovanova, 2014. "Collusion in markets characterized by one large buyer: lessons learned from an antitrust case in Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 49/EC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    10. Le Coq, Chloé & Sturluson, Jon-Thor, 2003. "Do Opponents' Experience Matter? Experimental Evidence from a Quantity Precommitment Game," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 531, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 10 Nov 2011.
    11. James Andreoni, 1995. "Warm-Glow versus Cold-Prickle: The Effects of Positive and Negative Framing on Cooperation in Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 1-21.
    12. Anna Conte & M. Vittoria Levati & Natalia Montinari, 2019. "Experience in public goods experiments," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 86(1), pages 65-93, February.
    13. Andersen, Per & Vetter, Henrik, 2015. "Pricing as a risky choice: Uncertainty and survival in a monopoly market," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-22.
    14. Nelson, Robert G. & Beil, Richard O., Jr., 1995. "A Classroom Experiment On Oligopolies," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-13, July.
    15. Tiziana Medda & Vittorio Pelligra & Tommaso Reggiani, 2021. "Lab-Sophistication: Does Repeated Participation in Laboratory Experiments Affect Pro-Social Behaviour?," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, February.
    16. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Nicolas Drouhin, 2010. "The end of the Bertrand Paradox ?," Post-Print halshs-00542486, HAL.
    17. Mason, Charles F. & Phillips, Owen R., 2000. "Vertical integration and collusive incentives: an experimental analysis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 471-496, April.
    18. Axel Sonntag & Daniel John Zizzo, 2015. "Institutional authority and collusion," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(1), pages 13-37, July.
    19. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2013. "Oligopoly Experiments In The Current Millennium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 439-460, July.
    20. Waddle, Roberts, 2005. "Strategic profit sharing between firms: the bertrand model," UC3M Working papers. Economics we050902, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • 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:oup:jcomle:v:3:y:2007:i:4:p:491-549.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jcle .

    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.