Actions Speak Louder than Words: Econometric Evidence to Target Tacit Collusion in Oligopolistic Markets

Arbeitspapier

Tacit collusion reduces welfare comparably to explicit collusion but remains mostly unaddressed by antitrust enforcement which greatly depends on evidence of explicit communication. We propose to target specific elements of firms’ behavior that facilitate tacit collusion by providing quantitative evidence that links these actions to an anticompetitive market outcome. We apply our approach to incidents on the Italian gasoline market where the market leader unilaterally announced its commitment to a policy of sticky pricing and large price changes which facilitated price alignment and coordination of price changes. Antitrust policy has to distinguish such active promotion of a collusive strategy from passive (best response) alignment. Our results imply the necessity of stronger legal instruments which target unilateral conduct that aims at bringing about collusion.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Munich Discussion Paper ; No. 2013-8

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Antitrust Law ; Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels ; Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
• Subject: antitrust law ; tacit collusion ; oligopolistic competition ; gasoline market

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Andreoli-Versbach, Patrick ; Franck, Jens-Uwe
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät
• (where): München
• (when): 2013

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.5282/ubm/epub.16179
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/104393
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-16179-3
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET