Abstract
The literature on oligopolistic competition abounds with various implicit statements about the ‘stability’ of collusive arrangements. A well known example is provided by comments on price arrangements between the sellers in a given industry. It is asserted that any oligopolistic configuration must be unstable with respect to monopolistic collusion: ‘the combined profits of the entire set of firms in an industry are maximised when they act together as a monopolist, and the result holds for any number of firms’ (Stigler, 1950, p. 24). At the same time however, it is recognised that ‘when the group of firms agrees to fix and abide by a price approaching monopoly levels, strong incentives are created for individual members to chisel — that is, to increase their profits by undercutting the fixed price slightly, gaining additional orders at a price that still exceeds marginal cost’ (Scherer, 1980, p. 171). On the other hand, in the recent literature on the core of an exchange market, it has been shown that, sometimes, monopolistic collusion can be disadvantageous to the traders involved when compared to the competitive outcome (Aumann, 1973). As for the collusive price-leadership model, it is stressed that the outsiders of a merger agreement may be better off than the insiders:
the major difficulty in forming a merger is that it is more profitable to be outside a merger than to be a participant. The outsider sells at the same price but at the much larger output at which marginal cost equals price. Hence the promoter of a merger is likely to receive much encouragement from each firm — almost every encouragement, in fact, except participation (Stigler, 1950).
We are grateful to A. Shaked for his comments and suggestions.
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References
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D’Aspremont, C., Jacquemin, A., Gabszewicz, J. and Weymark, J. (1981) ‘On the Stability of Collusive Price Leadership’, Canadian Journal of Economics, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 17–25.
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Tiebout, C. M. (1956) ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’, The Journal of Political Economy, vol. 64, pp. 416–24.
Westhoff, F. (1977) ‘Existence of Equilibria in Economies with a Local Public Good’, Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 14, pp. 84–112.
Donsimoni, M. P., Ekonomides, N. S. and Polemarchakis, H. M. (1981) ‘Stable Cartels’, Working Paper, 8112 ENSAE, France.
Hansen, T. and Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. (1972) ‘Collusion of Factor Owners and Distribution of Social Output’, Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 4, pp. 1–18.
Hart, S. and Kurz, M. (1981) ‘On the Endogenous Formation of Coalitions’, Technical Report No. 328, IMSSS, Stanford University, USA.
Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. and Dreze, J. H. (1971) ‘Syndicates of Traders in an Exchange Economy’, in H. W. Kuhn and G. Szego (eds), Differential Games and Related Topics, (Amsterdam, North-Holland), pp. 399–414.
Luce, R. D. and Raiffa, H. (1957), Games and Decisions, (New York: John Wiley).
Markham, J. W. (1951) ‘The Nature and Significance of Price-leadership’, American Economic Review, vol. 41, pp. 1877–8.
Postlewaite, A. and Roberts J. (1977) ‘A Note of the Stability of Large Cartels’, Econometrica, vol. 45, pp. 1877–8.
Scherer, F. M. (1980), Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance, 2nd edn, (New York: Rand McNally).
Selten, R. and Güth (1982) ‘Equilibrium Point Selection in a Class of Market Entry Games’, in M. Deistler, E. Fiirst and G. Schwodiauer (eds), Games, Economic Dynamics, and Time Series Analysis, (Wurzburg-Vienna, Physica-Verlag).
Stigler, G. J. (1950) ‘Monopoly and Oligopoly by Merger’, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, vol. 40 pp. 23–34.
Stigler, G. J. (1964) ‘A Theory of Oligopoly’, The Journal of Political Economy, vol. 72, pp. 44–61.
Tiebout, C. M. (1956) ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’, The Journal of Political Economy, vol. 64, pp. 416–24.
Westhoff, F. (1977) ‘Existence of Equilibria in Economies with a Local Public Good’, Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 14, pp. 84–112.
D’Aspremont, C., Jacquemin, A., Gabszewicz, J. and Weymark, J. (1982) ‘On the Stability of Dominant Cartels’ Canadian Journal of Economics,, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 17–25.
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d’Aspremont, C., Gabszewicz, J.J. (1986). On the Stability of Collusion. In: Stiglitz, J.E., Mathewson, G.F. (eds) New Developments in the Analysis of Market Structure. International Economic Association Series, vol 77. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18058-5_8
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