Theoretical work has suggested that contact between firms in different markets can facilitate tacit collusion. Empirical work on this link has been limited. We address the paucity of empirical evidence with a novel plant-level dataset for the cement industry during the Great Depression. We find...

We investigate the effects of passive backward acquisitions in their efficient upstream supplier on downstream firms' ability to collude in a dynamic game of price competition with homogeneous goods. We find that passive backward acquisitions impede downstream collusion. The main driver of our...

This paper studies repeated games with private monitoring where players make optimal decisions with respect to costly monitoring activities, just as they do with respect to stage-game actions. We consider the case where each player can observe other players' current-period actions accurately...

The paper considers tacit collusion in markets which are not fully transparent on both sides. Consumers only detect prices with some probability before deciding which fi?rm to purchase from, and each fi?rm only detects the other fi?rm's price with some probability. Increasing transparency on the...

This paper investigates the effects on tacit collusion of increased market transparency on the consumer side as well as on the producer side of a market. Increasing market transparency on the consumer side, increases the benefits to a firm from undercutting the collusive price. It also decreases...

We investigate the effect of a vertical merger on downstream firms’ ability to collude in a repeated game framework. We show that a vertical merger has two main effects. On the one hand, it increases the total collusive profits, increasing the stakes of collusion. On the other hand, it creates...

This paper investigates the effects on tacit collusion of increased market transparency on the consumer side of a market in a differentiated Hotelling duopoly. Increasing market transparency increases the benefits to a firm from underbutting the collusive price. It also decreases the punishment...

We investigate the effect of a vertical merger on downstream firms' ability to collude in a repeated game framework. We show that a vertical merger has two main effects. On the one hand, it increases the total collusive profits, increasing the stakes of collusion. On the other hand, it creates...

We investigate the effects of passive backward acquisitions in their efficient upstream supplier on downstream firms' ability to collude in a dynamic game of price competition with homogeneous goods. We find that passive backward acquisitions impede downstream collusion. The main driver of our...

Within a simple model of differentiated oligopoly, we show that tacit collusion may be prevented by the threat of nationalising a private firm coupled with the appropriate choice of the weight given to private profits in the maximand of the nationalised company. We characterise the properties of...