IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed004/418.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Impossibility of Collusion under Imperfect Monitoring with Flexible Production

Author

Listed:
  • Yuliy Sannikov
  • Andrzej Skrzypacz

Abstract

We show that it is impossible to achieve collusion in a duopoly when (1) the prices depend only on the sum of the firms' supplies (2) firms are able to respond to new information quickly and (3) the likelihood ratio for detection of each deviation is a continuous process (so that new information does not arrive in jumps.) We prove this result in a discrete-time setting where prices are stationary normal random variables whose mean depends on the sum of produced quantities and the variance is inversely proportional to time interval over which the quantities are fixed. The length of this interval represents the flexibility of production. In this setting, we show that when the production is sufficiently flexible, so that firms can move sufficiently frequently, it is not possible to sustain payoffs better than in a static Nash equilibrium. This result is valid even when we allow asymmetric public perfect equilibria with the possibility of monetary transfers. We also discuss effects of product differentiation.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuliy Sannikov & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2004. "Impossibility of Collusion under Imperfect Monitoring with Flexible Production," 2004 Meeting Papers 418, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed004:418
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susan Athey & Kyle Bagwell & Chris Sanchirico, 2004. "Collusion and Price Rigidity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 317-349.
    2. Andreas Blume & Paul Heidhues, 2008. "Modeling Tacit Collusion in Auctions," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(1), pages 163-184, March.
    3. Skrzypacz, Andrzej & Hopenhayn, Hugo, 2004. "Corrigendum to "Tacit collusion in repeated auctions" [J. Econ. Theory 114 (2004) 153-169]," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 370-371, February.
    4. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, January.
    5. Athey, Susan & Bagwell, Kyle, 2001. "Optimal Collusion with Private Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(3), pages 428-465, Autumn.
    6. 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.
    7. Drew Fudenberg & David Levine & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem With Imperfect Public Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 12, pages 231-273, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Abreu, Dilip & Milgrom, Paul & Pearce, David, 1991. "Information and Timing in Repeated Partnerships," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1713-1733, November.
    9. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2002. "What Determines Cartel Success?," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2002-01, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    10. 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.
    11. David A. Miller, 2012. "Robust Collusion with Private Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 778-811.
    12. Skrzypacz, Andrzej & Hopenhayn, Hugo, 2004. "Tacit collusion in repeated auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 153-169, January.
    13. Abreu, Dilip & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1986. "Optimal cartel equilibria with imperfect monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 251-269, June.
    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. 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.
    2. Chan, Jimmy & Zhang, Wenzhang, 2015. "Collusion enforcement with private information and private monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 188-211.
    3. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2005. "Detecting Cartels," Economics Working Paper Archive 526, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    4. 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.
    5. Martin, Alberto & Vergote, Wouter, 2008. "On the role of retaliation in trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 61-77, September.
    6. Lee, Gea M., 2010. "Optimal collusion with internal contracting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 646-669, March.
    7. Leo, Greg, 2017. "Taking turns," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 525-547.
    8. Martin, Alberto & Vergote, Wouter, 2004. "Antidumping: Welfare Enhancing Retaliation?," MPRA Paper 5416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Wang, Chengsi & Zudenkova, Galina, 2016. "Non-monotonic group-size effect in repeated provision of public goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 116-128.
    10. Susan Athey & Kyle Bagwell, 2008. "Collusion With Persistent Cost Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 493-540, May.
    11. Escobar, Juan F. & Llanes, Gastón, 2018. "Cooperation dynamics in repeated games of adverse selection," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 408-443.
    12. Susan Athey & Kyle Bagwell & Chris Sanchirico, 2004. "Collusion and Price Rigidity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 317-349.
    13. Blume, Andreas & Heidhues, Paul, 2006. "Private monitoring in auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 179-211, November.
    14. Nicolas Gruyer, 2008. "Optimal Auctions when a seller is bound to sell to collusive bidders (new version of "using lotteries ...")," Economics Working Papers 06, LEEA (air transport economics laboratory), ENAC (french national civil aviation school).
    15. Aperjis, Christina & Zeckhauser, Richard J. & Miao, Yali, 2014. "Variable temptations and black mark reputations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 70-90.
    16. B. Douglas Bernheim & Erik Madsen, 2017. "Price Cutting and Business Stealing in Imperfect Cartels," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 387-424, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Gerlach, Heiko, 2009. "Stochastic market sharing, partial communication and collusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 655-666, November.
    19. Nicolas Gruyer, 2005. "Using lotteries in auctions when buyers collude," Economics Working Papers 02, LEEA (air transport economics laboratory), ENAC (french national civil aviation school).
    20. Olszewski, Wojciech & Safronov, Mikhail, 2018. "Efficient cooperation by exchanging favors," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    repated games; imperfect monitoring; collusion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory

    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:red:sed004:418. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.