Explicit collusion is an agreement among competitors to suppress rivalry that relies on interfirm communication and/or transfers. Rivalry between competitors erodes profits; the suppression of rivalry through collusion is one avenue by which firms can enhance profits. Many cartels and bidding...

Procurement practices are affected by uncertainty regarding suppliers' costs, the nature of competition among suppliers, and uncertainty regarding possible collusion among suppliers. Buyers dissatisfied with bids of incumbent suppliers can cancel their procurements and resolicit bids after...

We describe and interpret bidding behavior in FCC Auction 73 for the C-block licenses. These licenses were initially offered subject to an open platform restriction, which was highly valued by firms such as Google. Google entered bids until its bids reached the C-block reserve price, thereby...

Previous work has addressed the relative vulnerability of different auction schemes to collusive bidding. The common wisdom is that ascending-bid and second-price auctions are highly susceptible to collusion. We show that the details of ascending-bid and second-price auctions, including bidder...

We show that below-cost pricing can arise in intermediate goods markets when a monopolist retailer negotiates sequentially with two suppliers of substitute products. Below-cost pricing by one supplier allows the retailer to extract rents from the second supplier. Thus, the retailer and one...

Explicit collusion is an agreement among competitors to suppress rivalry that relies on interfirm communication and/or transfers. Rivalry between competitors erodes profits; the suppression of rivalry through collusion is one avenue by which firms can enhance profits. Many cartels and bidding...