Economies of scale,strategic advertising and fully credible entry deterrence

Recent work on entry deterrence has emphasized the distinction between a monopolist’s reversible and irreversible preentry strategic moves (e.g., limit pricing) will not credible deter a rational potential entrant. Dixit (1980) and other have demonstrated, however, that irreversible preentry capacity investments can result in credible deterrence. In this paper, we examine preentry advertising investments which irreversibly alter postentry demand conditions. Using an infinite horizon model, we show that preentry investments in advertising may result in credible deterrence even for the extreme case where an entrant expects a collusive postentry price, and the monopolist ceases all advertising at the moment of entry.     

Optimal antitrust policy under different regimes of fines

This paper shows how antitrust laws against price-fixing can be enforced efficiently in the presence of asymmetric information between the authorities and the industry, and under different regimes of pecuniary punishment. We consider two regimes of fines that are often used in practice. The first involves a fine based on revenues of the industry while the second is related to the damage caused to consumers. The analysis shows that since investigation is costly, it is optimal from a welfare point of view to tolerate some degree of collusion in both cases. Comparing the deterrence levels, we show that no regime is a priori better than the other. In addition, we show that for industries where the possibilities of collusion are small, the first system dominates the second in terms of efficiency. Conversely, for high possibilities of collusion, the second system is better.     

The effectiveness of leniency programs when firms choose the degree of collusion

An antitrust authority grants leniency pre- and post-investigation. It chooses the probability of an investigation. Firms pick the degree of collusion: The more they collude, the higher are profits, but so is the probability of detection. Firms thus trade-off higher profits against higher expected fines. If firms are sufficiently patient, leniency is ineffective; it may even increase collusion. Increasing the probability of an investigation at low levels does not increase deterrence. Increasing the probability of an investigation at high levels reduces collusion, yet never completely. With bare pre-investigation leniency, deterrence is better than without leniency. If firms are sufficiently impatient, granting leniency pre- and post- is better than merely pre-investigation.     

Entry deterrence and experimentation under demand uncertainty

We examine the effect of a threat of entry on experimentation about demand by an incumbent monopolist when there is a fixed cost of entry. We show that experimentation may itself be used as a tool for entry deterrence and derive conditions under which experimentation reduces the probability of entry. These conditions depend on the entry rule which in turn depends on entry costs. We show that if experimentation does not deter entry, the monopolist incumbent experiments less. We also characterize experimentation and entry in the linear-uniform example, and show that cost of entry and experimentation do not have a monotonic relationship.     

Non-Discriminatory Pricing,Partial Backward Ownership,and Entry Deterrence

This article demonstrates that entry deterrence can occur when downstream incumbents hold non-controlling ownership shares of a supplier that does not price-discriminate. Such backward ownership implies a rebate on the input price for the incumbents and a competitive disadvantage for downstream entrants. An industry can use non-controlling ownership to change the pricing of a supplier in a way that appears to be accommodating but in fact deters entry. The supplier benefits from an obligation or a commitment to supply the customers under equal terms, as this induces profitable sales of ownership stakes to incumbent downstream firms.     

Detecting Collusion

Detection and deterrence of collusion are longstanding antitrust problems, made difficult because collusive arrangements are usually surreptitious. In this paper, I discuss factors that facilitate or inhibit collusive schemes, as well as circumstances where detection is possible. I describe how industrial organization economists diagnose collusion (both explicit and tacit) among firms.     

Advertising,industry innovation,and entry deterrence

With the advent of the Internet and social media platforms, advertising has become cheaper and more effective in reaching consumers. This paper studies the effect of better informative advertising on innovation and industry growth. This paper finds that improvements in informative advertising can lead to costly entry deterrence. Because advertising and innovation are complementary, better advertising raises the threats of entry. When innovation spillover is present in an industry, an incumbent firm has incentives to strategically lower its own innovation to deter entry. As a result, better advertising in innovation-intensive industries can have negative consequences on industry growth and consumer welfare. This paper also investigate the role of innovation spillover on entry deterrence.     

国有企业主导与行政性垄断下的价格合谋——“京沪空中快线”引发的若干思考

本文基于民航产业的价格同盟进行的模型分析和经验研究，在一定程度上解释了行政垄断和企业间合谋的关系。研究发现，在规制缺失或默许的条件下．包含惩罚方式的价格合谋是一个可行和可实施的机制安排，而寡头垄断和行政垄断的结合是诱发规制者干预价格竞争，最终形成所谓“价格同盟”的结构和制度条件。规制者和垄断国有企业关系的交织和错位下的反竞争行为，是未来《反垄断法》实施的主要障碍。     

Collusion at the extensive margin

We augment the multi-market collusion model of Bernheim and Whinston (1990) by allowing for firm entry into, and exit from, individual markets. We show that this gives rise to a new mechanism by which a cartel can sustain a collusive agreement: Collusion at the extensive margin whereby firms collude by avoiding entry into each other's markets or territories. We characterise parameter values that sustain this type of collusion and identify the assumptions where this collusion is more likely to hold than its intensive margin counterpart. Specifically, it is demonstrated that where duopoly competition is fierce collusion at the extensive margin is always sustainable. Finally, we provide a theoretic foundation for the use of a “proportional response” enforcement mechanism.     

Post-cartel tacit collusion: Determinants,consequences, and prevention

We experimentally investigate the determinants of post-cartel tacit collusion (PCTC), the effects of PCTC on market outcomes, and potential policy measures aimed at its prevention. PCTC occurs robustly with or without fines or leniency and is determined both by collusive price hysteresis and learning about cartel partners’ characteristics and strategies. As a result, it is also strongly related to the preceding cartel success. PCTC generates a downward bias in the estimated cartel overcharges. This threatens the effectiveness of deterrence induced by private damage litigation and fines imposed on colluding firms based on the overcharge. This bias further increases with preceding cartel stability such that especially more stable sets of colluding firms may be deterred less when PCTC is present. Rematching colluding subjects with strangers within a session prevents PCTC. This indicates that barring colluding managers from their posts could help impede PCTC in the field.     

Pseudo-Generic Products and Barriers to Entry in Pharmaceutical Markets

This paper examines incentives for brand-name pharmaceutical producers to market pseudo-generic versions of their own branded products upon the expiry of patent protection.Using a two-stage game model, we determine that under plausible demand and cost conditions, brand-name incumbents can find it profitable to produce pseudo-generics as a means of blocking rivals' entry even when independent firms producing true generics face low entry costs.The model shows that social welfare can be higher when firms use pseudo-generics instead of capacity for entry deterrence as long as substitutability between brand-name and generic products is sufficiently high.     

Entry by diversified firms into German industries

The paper describes the entry behaviour of diversifying Firms in the German manufacturing sector. The econometric analysis leads to the result that firms enter new markets if (1) the expected rate of return is higher than in other comparable markets, (2) the market is growing, and (3) the accumulated know-how can be transferred profitably to the new market. The incentive to enter other markets will be reduced by entry barriers like economies of scale, product differentiation, and market risk. It is interesting to note that if the market provides room for all firms, then entry deterrence strategies are less likely to be adopted by incumbent firms.     

携号转网政策对电信运营商合谋的影响研究

电信业是一个典型的寡头垄断产业,在运营过程中,电信运营商容易达成合谋,同时电信市场较高的转移成本为电信运营商合谋提供一定的基础。本文通过构建博弈模型,研究携号转网政策对电信运营商合谋的影响效应。研究得出：实施携号转网政策,通过有效降低消费者的转移成本,使得电信运营商坚持合谋的临界贴现因子提高,电信运营商将更难坚持合谋。该政策的实施效果随转移成本降低率的提高而增强,随电信运营商产品差异性的不断扩大而减弱。因此,携号转网政策的实施将在一定程度上降低电信运营商的合谋行为。     

Exclusionary pricing in two-sided markets

This paper studies the incentives to engage in exclusionary pricing in the context of two-sided markets. Platforms are horizontally differentiated, and seek to attract users of two groups who single-home and enjoy indirect network externalities from the size of the opposite user group active on the same platform. The entrant incurs a fixed cost of entry, and the incumbent can commit to its prices before the entry decision is taken. The incumbent has thus the option to either accommodate entry, or to exclude entry and enjoy monopolistic profits, albeit under the constraint that its price must be low enough to not leave any room for an entrant to cover its fixed cost of entry. We find that, in the spirit of the literature on limit pricing, under certain circumstances even platforms find it profitable to exclude entrants if the fixed entry cost lies above a certain threshold. By studying the properties of the threshold, we show that the stronger the network externality, the lower the thresholds for which incumbent platforms find it profitable to exclude. We also find that entry deterrence is more likely to harm consumers the weaker are network externalities, and the more differentiated are the two platforms.     

Multi-market collusion with territorial allocation

We develop a supergame model of collusion between price-setting oligopolists located in different markets separated by trade costs. The firms produce a homogeneous good and sustain collusion based on territorial allocation of markets. We first show, in a much more general framework than some earlier literature, that a reduction in trade costs can paradoxically increase the sustainability of collusion. Then we prove a new paradox in which the scope for collusion may be enhanced by an increase in the number of firms. The paper thus highlights several hitherto unknown theoretical implications of collusion under price competition.     

MERGER, EASE OF ENTRY AND ENTRY DETERRENCE IN A DYNAMIC MODEL

We analyze whether ease and speed of entry can mitigate the anti-competititve effects of a merger, in a dynamic model of endogenous merger. In our model, if new firms can enter quickly, it is more likely that merger is motivated by efficiency as opposed to increased market power. Thus, there is less reason to challenge the merger. On the other hand, if entry of new firms becomes less costly, firms may have a stronger incentive to monopolize the industry through horizontal merger. We also show that when the incumbent can engage in entry deterrence activities, anti-merger policy can decrease welfare.     

Forgoing invention to deter entry

A monopoly facing potential entry may not want to develop an efficient technology even at zero R&D costs. Such a phenomenon occurs if a new technology is distinct from the existing one so production uncertainty becomes technology-specific. Then the monopoly can reduce the entrant's post-entry profit to the point of deterrence by using the existing technology with which the entrant would enter. We show that the monopoly develops a new technology when the entrant faces a sufficiently high or low entry cost but forgoes invention when the entry cost is intermediate. These results hold both in quantity and price competition.     

Examining models of collusion: The market for lysine

We compare the experience with collusion in the market for lysine with the predictions of theory. The lysine market provides an ideal setting following the confessions of cartel participants in antitrust investigations. Data availability allows demand and cost functions to be estimated and observed mark-ups compared with predictions. We find that several integral aspects of collusion in the lysine market are not adequately addressed in the literature: the dynamics associated with entry and investment; persistent asymmetries between firms; the cartel's bargaining problem; and the existence of cheating in equilibrium. These issues are likely to have much wider applicability beyond the lysine market.     

Bundling,tying, and collusion

Tying a good produced monopolistically with a complementary good produced in an oligopolistic market in which there is room for collusion can be profitable if some buyers of the oligopoly good have no demand for the monopoly good. The reason is that a tie makes part of the demand in the oligopolistic market out of the reach of the tying firm's rivals, which decreases the profitability of deviating from a collusive agreement. Tying may thus facilitate collusion. It may also allow the tying firm to alter market share allocation in a collusive oligopolistic market.     

On Antitrust Enforcement and the Deterrence of Collusive Behaviour

This paper examines an antitrust enforcement policy of using significant price changes in an industry as a sorting mechanism for the allocation of resources devoted to policing collusion. That is, in either responding to complaints or initiating investigations on their own, I examine the issue of whether an antitrust enforcement policy of inferring possible collusion from significant prices changes is effective in deterring collusion given that antitrust officials have no direct knowledge of the costs of individual firms. Using the imperfect information repeated game of Green and Porter (1984), I show that this investigation strategy if coupled with uniform costs being borne by firms, can reduce the expected profits from the collusive agreement: however, unless the punishment is large enough, it will be ineffective in reducing the frequency of collusion. More importantly, it can have the undesirable effect of reducing the output agreed to by firms, if firms choose quantities, or raise collusive prices if firms are choosing price. Moreover, if the enforcement policy is anticipated by firms, the punishment mechanism adopted to support collusion will be altered to offset the policy.