IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0505008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Spaced Out Monopolies: Theory and Empirics of Alternating Product Releases

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur Zillante

    (ICES, George Mason University)

Abstract

An oft-neglected pattern of behavior occurs when firms time the release of their products so that they are not released on the same date. The practice is potentially collusive, so there may be legitimate antitrust concerns. This paper presents a model of this behavior, the alternating periods monopoly (APM). A comparison of the APM with other sustainable methods of collusion shows the conditions under which the APM is preferred. I develop an empirical test to detect the APM, and use data from the baseball card industry to investigate the possible use of an APM.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur Zillante, 2005. "Spaced Out Monopolies: Theory and Empirics of Alternating Product Releases," Industrial Organization 0505008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0505008
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/io/papers/0505/0505008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Peeters, Ronald J. A. P., 2004. "Stationary equilibria in stochastic games: structure, selection, and computation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 32-60, September.
    2. Robert J. Aumann & Lloyd S. Shapley, 2013. "Long Term Competition -- A Game-Theoretic Analysis," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 627-640, November.
    3. Isaac, R. Mark & Walker, James M., 1985. "Information and conspiracy in sealed bid auctions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 139-159, June.
    4. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, January.
    5. Patrick Bajari & Lixin Ye, 2003. "Deciding Between Competition and Collusion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 971-989, November.
    6. Porter, Robert H & Zona, J Douglas, 1993. "Detection of Bid Rigging in Procurement Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 518-538, June.
    7. Nevo, Aviv, 2001. "Measuring Market Power in the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(2), pages 307-342, March.
    8. Anthony M. Kwasnica & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2001. "Collusion via Signaling in Multiple Object Auctions with Complementarities- An Experimental Test," Working Papers 200102, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    9. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Robert W. Staiger & Frank A. Wolak, 1992. "Collusive Pricing with Capacity Constraints in the Presence of Demand Uncertainty," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(2), pages 203-220, Summer.
    11. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Peeters, Ronald & Schinkel, Maarten Pieter, 2005. "Intertemporal market division:: A case of alternating monopoly," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1207-1223, July.
    12. Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1986. "A Supergame-Theoretic Model of Price Wars during Booms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 390-407, June.
    13. Davis, Douglas D & Holt, Charles A, 1998. "Conspiracies and Secret Discounts in Laboratory Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 736-756, May.
    14. Arthur Zillante, 2005. "Survival in a Declining Industry: The Case of Baseball Cards," Industrial Organization 0505004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Baker, Jonathan B & Baresnahan, Timothy F, 1985. "The Gains from Merger or Collusion in Product-differentiated Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 427-444, 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. Todd R. Kaplan & Bradley J. Ruffle, 2012. "Which Way to Cooperate," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(563), pages 1042-1068, September.
    2. Andrea Amelio & Sara Biancini, 2010. "Alternating Monopoly And Tacit Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 402-423, June.

    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. Bolotova, Yuliya & Connor, John M. & Miller, Douglas J., 2008. "The impact of collusion on price behavior: Empirical results from two recent cases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1290-1307, November.
    2. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2005. "Detecting Cartels," Economics Working Paper Archive 526, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    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. Sylvain Chassang & Kei Kawai & Jun Nakabayashi & Juan Ortner, 2019. "Data Driven Regulation: Theory and Application to Missing Bids," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2019-04, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    5. Griffin, James M & Xiong, Weiwen, 1997. "The Incentive to Cheat: An Empirical Analysis of OPEC," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 289-316, October.
    6. Granlund, David & Rudholm, Niklas, 2023. "Calculating the probability of collusion based on observed price patterns," Umeå Economic Studies 1014, Umeå University, Department of Economics, revised 13 Oct 2023.
    7. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2002. "Globalization and Cooperative Relations," CEPR Discussion Papers 3522, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Dou, Winston Wei & Ji, Yan & Wu, Wei, 2021. "Competition, profitability, and discount rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 582-620.
    9. Sylvain Chassang & Juan Ortner, 2019. "Collusion in Auctions with Constrained Bids: Theory and Evidence from Public Procurement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2269-2300.
    10. Brown, David P. & Eckert, Andrew & Silveira, Douglas, 2023. "Screening for collusion in wholesale electricity markets: A literature review," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    11. Richard Schmalensee, 2012. "“On a Level with Dentists?” Reflections on the Evolution of Industrial Organization," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 41(3), pages 157-179, November.
    12. Panayiotis Agisilaou, 2013. "Collusion in Industrial Economics and Optimally Designed Leniency Programmes - A Survey," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-03, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    13. Pedro Dal Bo, 2002. "Three Essays on Repeated Games," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000038, David K. Levine.
    14. Juan‐Pablo Montero & Juan Ignacio Guzman, 2010. "Output‐Expanding Collusion In The Presence Of A Competitive Fringe," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 106-126, March.
    15. Abito, Jose Miguel & Chen, Cuicui, 2023. "A partial identification framework for dynamic games," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    16. Nicolas Vieille, 2010. "Recursive Methods in Discounted Stochastic Games: An Algorithm for - 1 and a Folk Theorem," Post-Print hal-00543616, HAL.
    17. Andrea Amelio & Sara Biancini, 2010. "Alternating Monopoly And Tacit Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 402-423, June.
    18. Labrecciosa Paola & Colombo Luca, 2010. "Technology Uncertainty and Market Collusion," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, March.
    19. Hwa Ryung Lee, 2010. "Bankruptcy and low cost carrier expansion in the airline industry," IEW - Working Papers 502, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2005. "Managerial incentives and collusive behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1501-1523, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Noncooperative strategies; alternating periods monopoly; duration analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L - Industrial Organization

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wpa:wuwpio:0505008. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.