We explore whether lawful cooperation in buyer groups facilitates collusion in the product market. Buyer groups … constitute credible threats. Hence, in theory, buyer groups facilitate collusion. We run several experimental treatments using …

degree of (tacit) collusion when exclusively humans interact to the case of one firm in the market delegating its decisions …)certainty about the actual presence of an algorithm does not significantly affect collusion. …

We explore whether buyer groups, in which firms legally purchase inputs jointly, facilitate collusion in the product … credible threats, hence, in theory buyer groups facilitate collusion. We run several experimental treatments in a three … as a main factor causing collusive product markets. -- buyer groups ; cartels ; collusion ; communication ; experiments …

Factors facilitating collusion may not successfully predict cartel occurrence: when a factor predicts that collusion …