This paper shows that generators exercised increasing market power in the England and Wales wholesale electricity market in the second half of the 1990s despite declining market concentration. It examines whether this was consistent with static, non-cooperative oligopoly models, which are widely...

This study investigates the impact of pre-play communication on the outcomes in Cournot duopoly and triopoly experiments, using both students and managers as subjects. Communication is implemented by two different devices, a 'standardized-communication' and a free-communication device. We find...

In bisherigen Untersuchungen der Auswirkungen aktienkursorientierter Management-Entlohnung auf den Preiswettbewerb wurden Nachfrageschwankungen nicht berücksichtigt. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, dass Manager auch dann eine größere Kollusionsneigung besitzen als Eigentümer, wenn sich die...

From the perspective of competitors, competition may be modeled as a prisoner's dilemma. Setting the monopoly price is cooperation, undercutting is defection. Jointly, competitors are better off if both are faithful to a cartel. Individually, profit is highest if only the competitor(s) is (are)...

In many cases, collusive agreements are formed by asymmetric firms and include only a subset of the firms active in the cartelized industry. This paper endogenizes the process of cartel formation in a numeric simulation model where firms differ in marginal costs and production technologies. The...

This paper analyzes the role of patience in a repeated Bertrand duopoly where firms bargain over which collusive price and market share to implement. It is shown that the least patient firm's market share is not monotone in its own discount factor

From the perspective of competitors, competition may be modeled as a prisoner’s dilemma. Setting the monopoly price is cooperation, undercutting is defection. Jointly, competitors are better off if both are faithful to a cartel. Individually, profit is highest if only the competitor(s) is...

Following Bernheim and Whinston (1990), this paper addresses the effects of multimarket contact on firms' ability to collude. Real world imperfections tend to make firms' objective function strictly concave and market supergames "interdependent": firms' payoffs in each market depend on how they...

Following Bernheim and Whinston (1990), this paper addresses the effects of multimarket contact on firms' ability to collude. Real world imperfections tend to make firms' objective function strictly concave and market supergames "interdependent": firms' payoffs in each market depend on how they...

We use experiments to analyze what type of communication is most effective in achieving cooperation in a simple collusion game. Consistent with the existing literature on communication and collusion, even minimal communication leads to a short run increase in collusion. However, in a limited...