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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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)...

We conduct experiments testing the relationship between excess capacity and pricing in repeated Bertrand-Edgeworth duopolies and triopolies. We systematically vary the experimental markets between low excess capacity (suggesting monopoly) and no capacity constraints (suggesting perfect...

Building on the seminal paper of Ordover, Saloner and Salop (1990), I study the role of reputation building on foreclosure in laboratory experiments. In one-shot interactions, upstream firms can choose to build a reputation by revealing their price history to the current upstream competitor. In...