IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/wc2000/0806.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collusion Under Asymmetric Information and Institutional Incompleteness

Author

Listed:
  • Cecile Aubert

    (University of Toulouse 1)

  • Jerome Pouyet

    (GREMAQ)

Abstract

We study collusion between a regulated firm and an unregulated competitor selling differentiated goods in a common market. There exists an institutional incompleteness that prevents the regulator from contracting with the competitor. Due to this, the effectiveness of yardstick mechanisms can be impaired by some behavior of the unregulated firm intended at concealing information from the regulator. With collusion under asymmetric information (modeled as in Laffont and Martimort), we show that the unique regulator is not able to benefit from asymmetries of information within the coalition if she offers contracts that induce truthful revelation of her firm's cost. Collusion entails large departures from the full information allocation (bunching may appear) casting some doubt on the optimality of collusion-proof mechanisms. When firms are regulated each by a different body, the lack of coordination between regulators to fight collusion still entails costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Cecile Aubert & Jerome Pouyet, 2000. "Collusion Under Asymmetric Information and Institutional Incompleteness," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0806, Econometric Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:0806
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/es2000/0806.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Bernard Caillaud & Bruno Jullien, 1997. "Common Market with Regulated Firms," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 47, pages 65-99.
    2. Jérôme Pouyet, 2002. "Collusion Under Asymmetric Information: The Role of the Correlation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(4), pages 543-572, October.
    3. Jean‐Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 1999. "Collusion‐Proof Samuelson Conditions for Public Goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 1(4), pages 399-438, October.
    4. Maggi, Giovanni, 1999. "Strategic Trade Policy under Incomplete Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(3), pages 571-594, August.
    5. Esther Gal-Or, 1991. "A Common Agency with Incomplete Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(2), pages 274-286, Summer.
    6. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 1997. "Collusion under Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 875-912, July.
    7. d'Aspremont, Claude & Gerard-Varet, Louis-Andre, 1979. "Incentives and incomplete information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 25-45, February.
    8. S. Lael Brainard & David Martimort, 1996. "Strategic Trade Policy Design with Asymmetric Information and Public Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(1), pages 81-105.
    9. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2000. "Mechanism Design with Collusion and Correlation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 309-342, March.
    10. Epstein, Larry G. & Peters, Michael, 1999. "A Revelation Principle for Competing Mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 119-160, September.
    11. Cremer, Jacques & McLean, Richard P, 1988. "Full Extraction of the Surplus in Bayesian and Dominant Strategy Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1247-1257, November.
    12. repec:adr:anecst:y:1997:i:47:p:05 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Laffont, Jean Jacques, 1997. "Collusion et information asymétrique," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 73(4), pages 595-609, décembre.
    2. Martin Hellwig & Felix Bierbrauer, 2009. "Public Good Provision in a Large Economy," 2009 Meeting Papers 1062, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Safronov, Mikhail, 2018. "Coalition-proof full efficient implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 659-677.
    4. Dawen Meng & Guoqiang Tian & Zhe Yang, 2017. "Two-agent collusion-proof implementation with correlation and arbitrage," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 21(3), pages 177-229, September.
    5. Jansen, Jos & Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2008. "The organization of regulated production: Complementarities, correlation and collusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 327-353, January.
    6. Felix Bierbrauer & Martin Hellwig, 2011. "Mechanism Design and Voting for Public-Good Provision," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_31, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    7. Tangeras, Thomas P., 2002. "Collusion-proof yardstick competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 231-254, February.
    8. Gorkem Celik & Michael Peters, 2016. "Reciprocal relationships and mechanism design," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 374-411, February.
    9. Fahad Khalil & Jacques Lawarrée & Troy J. Scott, 2015. "Private monitoring, collusion, and the timing of information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(4), pages 872-890, October.
    10. Antoine Faure-Grimaud & Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2000. "A Theory of Supervision with Endogenous Transaction Costs," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 1(2), pages 231-263, November.
    11. Che,Y.-K. & Kim,J., 2004. "Collusion-proof implementation of optimal mechanisms," Working papers 4, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    12. Sara Biancini, 2010. "Incomplete Regulation, Competition, and Entry in Increasing Returns to Scale Industries," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(6), pages 1003-1026, December.
    13. Michela Cella & Federico Etro, 2016. "Contract competition between hierarchies, managerial compensation and imperfectly correlated shocks," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 193-218, July.
    14. Philippe Jehiel & Benny Moldovanu, 2005. "Allocative and Informational Externalities in Auctions and Related Mechanisms," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000490, UCLA Department of Economics.
    15. Menicucci, Domenico, 2006. "Full surplus extraction by a risk averse seller in correlated environments," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 280-300, May.
    16. Martin Hellwig, 2015. "Financial Stability and Monetary Policy," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2015_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    17. Guo, Huiyi, 2024. "Collusion-proof mechanisms for full surplus extraction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 263-284.
    18. Meng, Dawen & Tian, Guoqiang, 2008. "Nonlinear Pricing with Arbitrage: On the Role of Correlation," MPRA Paper 41207, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Felix Bierbrauer, 2006. "Collectively Incentive Compatible Tax Systems," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2006_24, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    20. Eric Maskin, 2004. "Jean-Jacques Laffont: A Look Back," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 913-923, September.

    More about this item

    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:ecm:wc2000:0806. 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: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    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.