IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jhu/papers/601.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating Mergers for Coordinated Effects and the Role of 'Parallel Accommodating Conduct'

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph E. Harrington, Jr.

Abstract

The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines propose a form of coordinated effects, referred to as "parallel accommodating conduct," that is claimed not to involve the usual evaluation of the ability of firms to detect compliance and punish non-compliance with respect to supracompetitive prices. That claim is argued here to be false. Where the concept of parallel accommodating conduct is valid and constructive is in identifying coordinated effects that do not involve firms having an agreement. These issues are explored here in the context of a more general examination of how firms coordinate on and implement supracompetitive outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2012. "Evaluating Mergers for Coordinated Effects and the Role of 'Parallel Accommodating Conduct'," Economics Working Paper Archive 601, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:jhu:papers:601
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ2.jhu.edu/REPEC/papers/wp601_harrington.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919, October.
    2. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2004. "Two are few and four are many: number effects in experimental oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 435-446, April.
    3. 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.
    4. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2006. "How Do Cartels Operate?," Economics Working Paper Archive 531, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    5. Davies, Stephen & Olczak, Matthew & Coles, Heather, 2011. "Tacit collusion, firm asymmetries and numbers: Evidence from EC merger cases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 221-231, March.
    6. Russell Cooper & Douglas V. DeJong & Robert Forsythe & Thomas W. Ross, 1989. "Communication in the Battle of the Sexes Game: Some Experimental Results," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 20(4), pages 568-587, Winter.
    7. COOPER, R. & DEJONG, D.V. & FORSYTHE, R. & Tom Ross, 1989. "Communication In The Battle Of The Sexes Game," Carleton Industrial Organization Research Unit (CIORU) 89-03, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    8. Joseph E. Harrington Jr., 2011. "Posted Pricing As A Plus Factor," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 1-35.
    9. Harrington, Joseph E., 2006. "How Do Cartels Operate?," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 1-105, August.
    10. Harrington, Joseph E, Jr, 1987. "Collusion in Multiproduct Oligopoly Games under a Finite Horizon," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(1), pages 1-14, February.
    11. Lu, Yuanzhu & Wright, Julian, 2010. "Tacit collusion with price-matching punishments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 298-306, May.
    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. 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. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    3. Harrington, Joseph E. & Hernan Gonzalez, Roberto & Kujal, Praveen, 2016. "The relative efficacy of price announcements and express communication for collusion: Experimental findings," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 251-264.
    4. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2012. "A Theory of Tacit Collusion," Economics Working Paper Archive 588, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    5. Roux, Catherine & Santos-Pinto, Luís & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Home bias in multimarket Cournot games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 361-371.
    6. Harrington, Joseph E., 2017. "A theory of collusion with partial mutual understanding," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 140-158.
    7. Odenkirchen, Johannes, 2017. "Pricing Behavior of Cartel Outsiders in Incomplete Cartels," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168309, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Argenton, Cédric & Müller, Wieland, 2012. "Collusion in experimental Bertrand duopolies with convex costs: The role of cost asymmetry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 508-517.
    9. Davies, Stephen & Olczak, Matthew & Coles, Heather, 2011. "Tacit collusion, firm asymmetries and numbers: Evidence from EC merger cases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 221-231, March.
    10. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    11. Luke Garrod & Matthew Olczak, 2017. "Collusion Under Imperfect Monitoring with Asymmetric Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(3), pages 654-682, September.
    12. Bhattacharjea, Aditya & Sinha, Uday Bhanu, 2015. "Multi-market collusion with territorial allocation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 42-50.
    13. Argenton, Cédric & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Müller, Wieland, 2024. "Cournot meets Bayes-Nash: A discontinuity in behavior in finitely repeated duopoly games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 1-12.
    14. Garrod, Luke & Olczak, Matthew, 2018. "Explicit vs tacit collusion: The effects of firm numbers and asymmetries," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-25.
    15. Werner, Tobias, 2021. "Algorithmic and human collusion," DICE Discussion Papers 372, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    16. Sangeun Ha & Fangyuan Ma & Alminas Žaldokas, 2021. "Motivating Collusion," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202108, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    17. Nobuyuki Hanaki & Aidas Masiliunas, 2021. "Market Concentration and Incentives to Collude in Cournot Oligopoly Experiments," ISER Discussion Paper 1131, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    18. Argenton, Cédric & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Müller, Wieland, 2024. "Cournot meets Bayes-Nash: A discontinuity in behavior in finitely repeated duopoly games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 1-12.
    19. Ganslandt, Mattias & Persson, Lars & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2007. "Asymmetric Collusion and Merger Policy," Working Paper Series 719, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    20. Persson, Lars & Ganslandt, Mattias & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2008. "Asymmetric Cartels - a Theory of Ring Leaders," CEPR Discussion Papers 6829, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:jhu:papers:601. 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: Humphrey Muturi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dejhuus.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.