IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lau/crdeep/13.02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collusion Among Many Firms: The Disciplinary Power of Targeted Punishment

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine Roux
  • Christian Thöni

Abstract

We explore targeted punishment as an explanation for collusion among many firms. In a series of Cournot oligopoly experiments with various numbers of firms, we compare production decisions with and without the possibility to target punishment at specific market participants. We find strong evidence that targeted punishment enables firms to establish and maintain collusion. More so, we find that the collusive effect of targeted punishment is even stronger in markets with more competitors, suggesting a reversal of the conventional wisdom that collusion is easier the fewer the firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine Roux & Christian Thöni, 2013. "Collusion Among Many Firms: The Disciplinary Power of Targeted Punishment," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 13.02, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    • Handle: RePEc:lau:crdeep:13.02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hec.unil.ch/deep/textes/13.02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christie, William G & Harris, Jeffrey H & Schultz, Paul H, 1994. "Why Did NASDAQ Market Makers Stop Avoiding Odd-Eighth Quotes?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1841-1860, December.
    2. Dick, Andrew R, 1996. "When Are Cartels Stable Contracts?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 241-283, April.
    3. Doruk İriş & Luís Santos-Pinto, 2013. "Tacit Collusion under Fairness and Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, February.
    4. Attila Ambrus & Ben Greiner, 2012. "Imperfect Public Monitoring with Costly Punishment: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3317-3332, December.
    5. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    6. David Masclet & Charles Noussair & Steven Tucker & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2003. "Monetary and Nonmonetary Punishment in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 366-380, March.
    7. Carpenter, Jeffrey P., 2007. "Punishing free-riders: How group size affects mutual monitoring and the provision of public goods," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 31-51, July.
    8. Christie, William G & Schultz, Paul H, 1994. "Why Do NASDAQ Market Makers Avoid Odd-Eighth Quotes?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1813-1840, December.
    9. Marco Casari, 2005. "On the Design of Peer Punishment Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(2), pages 107-115, June.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, January.
    13. Bochet, Olivier & Page, Talbot & Putterman, Louis, 2006. "Communication and punishment in voluntary contribution experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 11-26, May.
    14. Joseph E. Harrington & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2011. "Private Monitoring and Communication in Cartels: Explaining Recent Collusive Practices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2425-2449, October.
    15. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2013. "Oligopoly Experiments In The Current Millennium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 439-460, July.
    16. Hay, George A & Kelley, Daniel, 1974. "An Empirical Survey of Price Fixing Conspiracies," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 13-38, April.
    17. Ananish Chaudhuri, 2011. "Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: a selective survey of the literature," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 47-83, March.
    18. Abreu, Dilip, 1988. "On the Theory of Infinitely Repeated Games with Discounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 383-396, March.
    19. David Genesove & Wallace P. Mullin, 2001. "Rules, Communication, and Collusion: Narrative Evidence from the Sugar Institute Case," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 379-398, June.
    20. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2012. "Explicit vs. tacit collusion—The impact of communication in oligopoly experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1759-1772.
    21. Kristoffel Grechenig & Andreas Nicklisch & Christian Thöni, 2010. "Punishment despite Reasonable Doubt – A Public Goods Experiment with Uncertainty over Contributions," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_11, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    22. Fraas, Arthur G & Greer, Douglas F, 1977. "Market Structure and Price Collusion: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 21-44, September.
    23. 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.
    24. Christian Thöni, 2014. "Inequality aversion and antisocial punishment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 529-545, April.
    25. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2006. "How Do Cartels Operate?," Economics Working Paper Archive 531, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    26. Greiner, Ben, 2004. "An Online Recruitment System for Economic Experiments," MPRA Paper 13513, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    27. 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.
    28. 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.
    29. Joseph E. Harrington Jr. & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2007. "Collusion under monitoring of sales," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 314-331, June.
    30. Posner, Richard A, 1970. "A Statistical Study of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 365-419, October.
    31. Harrington, Joseph E., 2006. "How Do Cartels Operate?," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 1-105, August.
    32. Hinloopen,Jeroen (ed.), 2009. "Experiments and Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521493420, January.
    33. Catherine Roux & Christian Thöni, 2015. "Do control questions influence behavior in experiments?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 185-194, June.
    34. Krattenmaker, Thomas G & Salop, Steven C, 1986. "Competition and Cooperation in the Market for Exclusionary Rights," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 109-113, May.
    35. Reinhard Selten, 1973. "A Simple Model of Imperfect Competition, where 4 are Few and 6 are Many," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 008, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    36. William G. Christie & Paul H. Schultz, 1995. "Policy Watch: Did Nasdaq Market Makers Implicitly Collude?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 199-208, Summer.
    37. Jeroen Hinloopen & Adriaan R. Soetevent, 2008. "Laboratory evidence on the effectiveness of corporate leniency programs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 607-616, June.
    38. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    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. Catherine Roux & Christian Thöni, 2015. "Do control questions influence behavior in experiments?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 185-194, June.
    2. Comeig, Irene & Klaser, Klaudijo & Pinar, Lucía D., 2022. "The paradox of (Inter)net neutrality: An experiment on ex-ante antitrust regulation✰," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    3. Nicklisch, Andreas & Grechenig, Kristoffel & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Information-sensitive Leviathans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 1-13.
    4. Andreas Freitag & Catherine Roux & Christian Thöni, 2021. "Communication And Market Sharing: An Experiment On The Exchange Of Soft And Hard Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 175-198, February.
    5. Xiaowei Wang & Kunhui Ye & Taozhi Zhuang & Rui Liu, 2022. "The Influence of Collusive Information Dissemination on Bidder’s Collusive Willingness in Urban Construction Projects," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, April.
    6. Roux, Catherine & Santos-Pinto, Luís & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Home bias in multimarket Cournot games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 361-371.
    7. Bodnar, Olivia & Fremerey, Melinda & Normann, Hans-Theo & Schad, Jannika Leonie, 2021. "The effects of private damage claims on cartel activity: Experimental evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 315, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), revised 2021.
    8. Xiaowei Wang & Wuyan Long & Meiyue Sang & Yang Yang, 2022. "Towards Sustainable Urbanization: Exploring the Influence Paths of the Urban Environment on Bidders’ Collusive Willingness," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-14, February.
    9. 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).
    10. Normann, Hans-Theo & Sternberg, Martin, 2023. "Human-algorithm interaction: Algorithmic pricing in hybrid laboratory markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Darai, D. & Roux, C. & Schneider, F., 2019. "Mergers, Mavericks, and Tacit Collusion," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1984, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    12. Hans-Theo Normann & Martin Sternberg, 2021. "Human-Algorithm Interaction: Algorithmic Pricing in Hybrid Laboratory Markets," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2021_11, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised 13 Apr 2022.
    13. 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.

    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. Andreas Freitag & Catherine Roux & Christian Thöni, 2021. "Communication And Market Sharing: An Experiment On The Exchange Of Soft And Hard Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 175-198, February.
    2. 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.
    3. Darai, D. & Roux, C. & Schneider, F., 2019. "Mergers, Mavericks, and Tacit Collusion," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1984, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2011. "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Determinants of Cartel Duration," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 455-492.
    5. Luke Garrod & Matthew Olczak, 2016. "Collusion, Firm Numbers and Asymmetries Revisited," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2016-11, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Nicklisch, Andreas & Grechenig, Kristoffel & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Information-sensitive Leviathans," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 1-13.
    7. Ari Hyytinen & Frode Steen & Otto Toivanen, 2019. "An Anatomy of Cartel Contracts," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2155-2191.
    8. Axel Sonntag & Daniel John Zizzo, 2015. "Institutional authority and collusion," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(1), pages 13-37, July.
    9. Normann, Hans-Theo & Rösch, Jürgen & Schultz, Luis Manuel, 2015. "Do buyer groups facilitate collusion?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 72-84.
    10. Georg Clemens & Holger A. Rau, 2022. "Either with us or against us: experimental evidence on partial cartels," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(2), pages 237-257, September.
    11. Engel, Christoph, 2014. "Social preferences can make imperfect sanctions work: Evidence from a public good experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 343-353.
    12. 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.
    13. Haucap, Justus & Heldman, Christina & Rau, Holger A., 2024. "Gender and cooperation in the presence of negative externalities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 148-169.
    14. Andreoli-Versbach, Patrick & Franck, Jens-Uwe, 2013. "Actions Speak Louder than Words: Econometric Evidence to Target Tacit Collusion in Oligopolistic Markets," Discussion Papers in Economics 16179, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    15. Masiliūnas, Aidas & Nax, Heinrich H., 2020. "Framing and repeated competition," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 604-619.
    16. 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.
    17. Jan Potters & Sigrid Suetens, 2013. "Oligopoly Experiments In The Current Millennium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 439-460, July.
    18. Roux, Catherine & Santos-Pinto, Luís & Thöni, Christian, 2016. "Home bias in multimarket Cournot games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 361-371.
    19. Fonseca, Miguel A. & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2012. "Explicit vs. tacit collusion—The impact of communication in oligopoly experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1759-1772.
    20. Connor, John M., 2003. "Private International Cartels: Effectiveness, Welfare, And Anticartel Enforcement," Staff Papers 28645, Purdue University, Department of Agricultural Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cournot oligopoly; Experiments; Collusion; Targeted punishment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

    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:lau:crdeep:13.02. 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: Christina Seld (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deelsch.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.