IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v4y2013i1p50-65d23527.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tacit Collusion under Fairness and Reciprocity

Author

Listed:
  • Doruk İriş

    (Sogang University, School of Economics, 35 Baekbeom-ro, Seoul, South Korea)

  • Luís Santos-Pinto

    (University of Lausanne, Faculty of Business and Economics, Internef, 535 CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland)

Abstract

This paper departs from the standard profit-maximizing model of firm behavior by assuming that firms are motivated in part by personal animosity–or respect–towards their competitors. A reciprocal firm responds to unkind behavior of rivals with unkind actions (negative reciprocity), while at the same time, it responds to kind behavior of rivals with kind actions (positive reciprocity). We find that collusion is easier to sustain when firms have a concern for reciprocity towards competing firms provided that they consider collusive prices to be kind and punishment prices to be unkind. Thus, reciprocity concerns among firms can have adverse welfare consequences for consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Doruk İriş & Luís Santos-Pinto, 2013. "Tacit Collusion under Fairness and Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:4:y:2013:i:1:p:50-65:d:23527
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/4/1/50/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/4/1/50/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    2. Segal, Uzi & Sobel, Joel, 2007. "Tit for tat: Foundations of preferences for reciprocity in strategic settings," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 197-216, September.
    3. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    4. Malueg, David A., 1992. "Collusive behavior and partial ownership of rivals," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 27-34, March.
    5. John Geanakoplos & David Pearce & Ennio Stacchetti, 2010. "Psychological Games and Sequential Rationality," Levine's Working Paper Archive 587, David K. Levine.
    6. Huck, Steffen & Muller, Wieland & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2001. "Stackelberg Beats Cournot: On Collusion and Efficiency in Experimental Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(474), pages 749-765, October.
    7. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
    8. Santos-Pinto, Luís, 2006. "Reciprocity, inequity-aversion, and oligopolistic competition," MPRA Paper 3143, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Apr 2007.
    9. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    10. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    11. David Gilo & Yossi Moshe & Yossi Spiegel, 2006. "Partial Cross Ownership and Tacit Collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 81-99, Spring.
    12. Rabin, Matthew, 1997. "Fairness in Repeated Games," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0nz5b4mb, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    13. William Neilson, 2006. "Axiomatic reference-dependence in behavior toward others and toward risk," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(3), pages 681-692, August.
    14. Geanakoplos, John & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1989. "Psychological games and sequential rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 60-79, March.
    15. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    16. Abreu, Dilip, 1988. "On the Theory of Infinitely Repeated Games with Discounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 383-396, March.
    17. Christoph Engel, 2007. "How Much Collusion? A Meta-Analysis Of Oligopoly Experiments," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 491-549.
    18. Switgard Feuerstein, 2005. "Collusion in Industrial Economics—A Survey," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 163-198, December.
    19. David Gilo & Yossi Moshe & Yossi Spiegel, 2006. "Partial cross ownership and tacit collusion," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(1), pages 81-99, March.
    20. Nabil Al‐Najjar & Sandeep Baliga & David Besanko, 2008. "Market forces meet behavioral biases: cost misallocation and irrational pricing," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(1), pages 214-237, March.
    21. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    22. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "Rationalizability, Learning, and Equilibrium in Games with Strategic Complementarities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1255-1277, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roux, Catherine & Thöni, Christian, 2015. "Collusion among many firms: The disciplinary power of targeted punishment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 83-93.
    2. Rossella Ferrario & Elena Manzoni, 2022. "Emotions matter for policy-making: An example on tacit collusion and guilt," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 6(S1), pages 67-72, July.
    3. von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2013. "Intention-based reciprocity and the hidden costs of control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 55-65.
    4. Normann, Hans-Theo & Sternberg, Martin, 2022. "Human-algorithm interaction: Algorithmic pricing in hybrid laboratory markets," DICE Discussion Papers 392, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    5. Normann, Hans-Theo & Sternberg, Martin, 2023. "Human-algorithm interaction: Algorithmic pricing in hybrid laboratory markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    6. Armstrong, Mark & Huck, Steffen, 2010. "Behavioral economics as applied to firms: a primer," MPRA Paper 20356, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. repec:bla:annpce:v:89:y:2018:i:1:p:235-249 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2005. "The Economics of Fairness, Reciprocity and Altruism – Experimental Evidence and New Theories," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 66, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    2. Hahn, Volker & Mühe, Felix, 2009. "Committees and reciprocity," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 26-47, January.
    3. Bogliacino, Francesco & Rodríguez González, Nicolás, 2020. "Two-worker competition in gift-exchange: assessing intention-based reciprocity and inequity aversion," MPRA Paper 99055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Bierbrauer, Felix & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "Mechanism design and intentions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 557-603.
    5. Xiao, Erte & Bicchieri, Cristina, 2010. "When equality trumps reciprocity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 456-470, June.
    6. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    7. Kranz, Sebastian, 2010. "Moral norms in a partly compliant society," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 255-274, January.
    8. Andreozzi, Luciano, 2013. "Learning to be fair," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 181-195.
    9. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    10. Segal, Uzi & Sobel, Joel, 2007. "Tit for tat: Foundations of preferences for reciprocity in strategic settings," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 197-216, September.
    11. Cox, James C. & Friedman, Daniel & Gjerstad, Steven, 2007. "A tractable model of reciprocity and fairness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 17-45, April.
    12. Nyborg, Karine, 2018. "Reciprocal climate negotiators," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 707-725.
    13. Antoine Billot & Chantal Marlats, 2009. "Préferences psychologiques et nouvelle économie politique," Working Papers halshs-00566146, HAL.
    14. von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2013. "Intention-based reciprocity and the hidden costs of control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 55-65.
    15. Dufwenberg, Martin & Patel, Amrish, 2017. "Reciprocity networks and the participation problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 260-272.
    16. Christian Korth, 2009. "Reciprocity—An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Fairness in Bargaining and Markets, chapter 0, pages 35-55, Springer.
    17. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Theories of Fairness and Reciprocity - Evidence and Economic Applications," IEW - Working Papers 075, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Miettinen, Topi, 2013. "Promises and conventions – An approach to pre-play agreements," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 68-84.
    19. Juan Camilo Cárdenas & César Mantilla & Rajiv Sethi, 2015. "Stable Sampling Equilibrium in Common Pool Resource Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, August.
    20. Ying Tang & Andrea Moro & Sandro Sozzo & Zhiyong Li, 2018. "Modelling trust evolution within small business lending relationships," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 1-18, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fairness; reciprocity; collusion; repeated games;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:4:y:2013:i:1:p:50-65:d:23527. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.