We study the welfare effects of non-binding advance price announcements. Applying a differentiated Bertrand model with horizontal products and asymmetric information, we find that such announcements can help firms to gain information on each other thereby allowing them to achieve higher profits....

We hypothesize a particular source of cartel instability and explore its relevance to understanding cartel dynamics. The cartel instability is rooted in the observation that, upon cartel formation, the relative positions of firms are often fixed which may lead some growthconscious members to be...

We provide a comprehensive quantitative assessment of cartels and the related cartel enforcement process in the European Union (EU) from 2001 to 2015. In a first step, we present a detailed characterization of all cartel cases decided by the European Commission (EC) with respect to various...

We study the welfare effects of non-binding advance price announcements. Applying a differentiated Bertrand model with horizontal products and asymmetric information, we find that such announcements can help firms to gain information on each other thereby allowing them to achieve higher profits....

A challenge for many cartels is avoiding a destabilizing increase in non-cartel supply in response to having raised price. In the case of the German cement cartel that operated over 1991-2002, the primary source of non-cartel supply was imports from Eastern European cement manufacturers....