This paper discusses the question whether self-learning price-setting algorithms are able to coordinate their pricing behaviour to achieve a collusive outcome that maximizes the joint profits of the firms using these algorithms. While the legal literature generally assumes that algorithmic...

Recent experimental simulations have shown that autonomous pricing algorithms are able to learn collusive behavior and thus charge supra-competitive prices without being explicitly programmed to do so. These simulations assume, however, that both firms employ the identical price-setting...