R&D COOPERATION BETWEEN IMPATIENT RIVALS

We analyse R&D cooperation between product‐market competitors within a repeated‐game framework with imperfect monitoring. When firms are patient enough, R&D cooperation is attainable without product‐market collusion. However, if firms are less patient, we show that collusion in the product market is necessary to sustain R&D cooperation. Moreover, consumers can be better off when collusion is allowed in this case.     

THE PRICE OF SILENCE: MARKETS FOR NOISE LICENSES AND AIRPORTS*

This article presents a market design for the management of noise pollution created by aircraft traffic around airports. A local market for noise licenses allows noise generators to compensate noise victims and to meet social acceptability. We show that the market allows the market designer to implement the social planner's optimal allocation of flights as long as the latter does not put too high a weight in his/her objective function on firms' profits compared to the disutility of noise pollution. The fact that local representatives of noise victims may be strategic players does not fundamentally alter this finding. Because of the market auctioneer's information constraints, noise licenses are likely to distribute windfall gains to residents, which alters the urban structure in the long run.     

The impact of carbon cap and trade regulation on congested electricity market equilibrium

Greenhouse gas regulation aimed at limiting the carbon emissions from the electric power industry will affect system operations and market outcomes. The impact and the efficacy of the regulatory policy depend on interactions of demand elasticity, transmission network, market structure, and strategic behavior of generators. This paper develops an equilibrium model of an oligopoly electricity market in conjunction with a cap-and-trade policy to study such interactions. We study their potential impacts on market and environmental outcomes which are demonstrated through a small network test case and a reduced WECC 225-bus model with a detailed representation of the California market. The results show that market structure and congestion can have a significant impact on the market performance and the environmental outcomes of the regulation while the interactions of such factors can lead to unintended consequences.     

Interlinking and Collusion

In this paper, we suggest a new rationale for the existence of interlinked contracts in the agrarian economies of developing countries. Using the framework of an infinitely repeated game with discounting, we show that interlinked contracts can help the dominant parties to collude, in cases where collusion is not possible with noninterlinked contracts. This occurs because either interlinkage pools incentive constraints across markets, or it affects the incentives of agents to accept deviating contracts. We illustrate these mechanisms by considering the case of interlinkage between markets for credit and share tenancy. The model that is used to formalize the second mechanism is characterized by frictions in the tenancy market, which we model using the standard framework of search and matching.     

Transmission Constraints and Imperfect Markets for Power

This article argues that, while most of the economic gains from the restructuring of the power industry will be achieved in electricity generation, trading and retailing, the transmission grid holds the keys to an important share of the economic value created by the process. Using a simple three-node network, this article shows that an increase in transmission capacity has two effects: (1) cheaper power can be used, and (2) competition among generators is increased. This carries three policy implications: first, policy makers can and should use transmission expansion to increase competition in generation. Second, generators will not necessarily finance nor advocate optimal transmission expansion: they may prefer to keep the rents derived from local market power, rather than gain better access to markets, even if they receive transmission payments corresponding to their investment, as suggested in parts of the United States. Finally, this work provides support for the vertical separation between generation and transmission, beyond the traditional foreclosure argument.     

Market power in the Spanish electricity auction

Hourly data from the Spanish day-ahead electricity auction is used to obtain a lower bound measure of generators’ market power. Our method is not based on cost estimates but rather on the behavioral differences between strategic generators and more competitive producers. The results indicate that, despite the price cap effect of regulation in this market, the larger operators in the day-ahead market are able to increase significantly prices above the competitive benchmark. We also show that the two large generators do not exploit the full potential of their market power.     

Cost‐Based Anti‐dumping as a Repeated Game

In this paper, we consider anti‐dumping (AD) duties as a tool to facilitate collusion between a domestic and a foreign firm in an infinitely repeated differentiated Bertrand game, where prices are publicly observable and each firm receives a privately observed i.i.d. cost shock in each period. We consider second‐best scenarios, where market‐share or production arrangement with sidepayments is not allowed. We show that there exist equilibrium‐path reciprocal ADs. The collusive (trigger) price is distorted downward compared with complete information benchmark as a trade‐off between diminishing the incentive to deviate and ensuring off‐schedule deviation gains when private cost shocks are highly favourable. The model differs from Green and Porter ( 1984 ) and Rotemberg and Saloner ( 1986 ) in that it is the private cost shocks as opposed to public demand shocks that necessitate modifications of collusion. In conclusion, AD policy may encourage collusion, and therefore, unless the source of market imperfection is carefully examined, laissez faire might be a better choice.     

Efficiency and Income Shares in High‐Demand Energy Networks: Who Receives the Congestion Rents when a Line is Constrained?

We create an experimental spot market for electricity with demand side bidding, and use experimental methods to study the efficiency of the market and the income shares of the generators, wholesale buyers and transmission line operators. Nodal and line prices are computed on the basis of short run marginal costs, energy losses in transmission, and network opportunity costs when a line is constrained. We find that a traditional, competitive model, which yields congestion rents for the transmission line owners, does not explain the observed bidding behavior; and that subtle differences in institutional rules can cause changes in market efficiency.     

Exchange Agreements Facilitate Collusion

A duopoly model with quantity competition is analyzed in which firms collude in two markets. There is specialization in production in order to promote efficiency. Firms may then either exclusively market one good each, or they may agree to exchange goods and cross-supply a part of the production to the other firm. It is shown that, compared to specialization in marketing, positive exchanges of goods relax the incentive constraints that limit the extent of collusion.     

Trade liberalization,forward‐looking firms,and welfare

We set up an oligopolistic model with two exporting firms selling to a third market to investigate the welfare implications of trade liberalization when the exporting firms are forward‐looking. The results show that with cost asymmetry trade liberalization encourages the exporting firms to engage in tacit collusion, which may not only be detrimental to the domestic welfare, but also to the consumer surplus of the importing country. Moreover, we find that tacit collusion is less sustainable if the government of the importing country imposes a lower (higher) tariff on the more (less) efficient exporting firm. If a nonforward‐looking or a forward‐looking cost‐efficient domestic firm exists in the importing country, then trade liberalization also encourages tacit collusion.     

Tacit collusion in housing markets: the case of Santiago,Chile

In this article, using a detailed micro-database from Santiago, Chile, the potential existence of tacit collusion in housing markets is investigated. In order to perform the test, Santiago’s housing market is split into four different submarkets using hedonic price analysis and household’s socioeconomics characteristics. Then, using a GMM panel data model, regressions are run for each submarket, correlating industry’s markups with the aggregate level of activity. The main finding is that low and middle income submarkets present higher average markups and a pro-cyclical behaviour. This finding is consistent with a market where participants do not face capacity constraints and behave strategically to sustain tacit collusion during increasing demand periods.     

Mergers,cartels and leniency programs: The role of capital stocks

This paper examines the impact of mergers on collusion, depending on the endowment of capital assets among firms. We show that mergers render collusion easier to sustain when an asymmetric capital stock is combined with less-efficient insiders, due to more symmetric conditions and tighter incentive constraints. Moreover, the model allows us to determine an optimal threshold of asymmetry between insiders and outsiders such that mergers have pro-competitive effects; we compare this value with that which would generate perfect symmetry between firms after the merger.     

Strategic Pricing when Electricity is Storable

In this paper, we develop a simplified oligopoly model where hydro generators engage in dynamic Bertrand competition. Each player uses a Markov strategy based on the state of water reservoirs at the beginning of each period. The replenishing of water reservoirs, which affects generators' productive capacity, is governed by a stochastic process. Also, a price cap, i.e. a maximum bid allowed, is imposed on the market. We develop valuable insights for regulatory policy in predominantly hydro based electricity markets, including the effects of price caps, the efficiency of dispatch under strategic behavior and the likelihood of collusion.     

Self‐protection? Antidumping Duties,Collusion, and FDI*

It is well established that the threat of antidumping duties can help sustain collusion between a foreign firm and its domestic counterpart. However, when the foreign firm is a multinational with a subsidiary in the domestic country, that subsidiary can undermine efforts for protection, thereby diminishing the threat of duties that would otherwise sustain collusion. Accordingly, we show that the multinational may choose to submit to a tariff even under collusion since evidence indicates that duties are more difficult to remove than initiate. In this way, it is possible to obtain a greater degree of commitment, although it comes at a cost. Nevertheless, we prove that this can be a more profitable strategy than those previously explored. Thus, a parent firm may instruct its subsidiary to support duties against the parent. In fact, we find several cases where subsidiaries of multinationals have indeed filed for protection from their own parents.     

Collusion and the organization of delegated expertise

We study the optimal design of incentive contracts for experts in different collusion environments, and explore implications for the organization of delegated expertise. We consider a principal relying on experts to gather and report two signals about a project's value. The principal can have a single expert gather both signals or two experts gather one signal each. We show that absent collusion, the multiexpert organization dominates the single expert organization. However, this ranking is reversed when the experts can collude among themselves (horizontal collusion) and with the principal (vertical collusion).     

Price collusion with free entry: the parasitic competition

The market equilibrium that is generated in the presence of both price collusion and free entry is analyzed taking under consideration the case of a homogeneous product and the case of differentiated products. The outcomes of this market regime are compared with those of other regimes, including competition (or monopolistic competition), monopoly, fixed price with collusive entry limitation. Some welfare implications of the market regime of price collusion with free entry are examined, with respect to the maximum social welfare allocation and the allocations of other market regimes, so to highlight the inefficiency of price collusion with free entry. The number of producers results to be the maximum number of firms that can produce without incurring into losses. Therefore, social distress is caused by a displacement from the price collusion equilibrium with free entry. Its defence can thus be considered in reference to the desirability of social goals that are in contradiction with economic efficiency.     

Collusion in mixed oligopolies and the coordinated effects of privatization

We study the sustainability of collusion in mixed oligopolies where private and public firms only differ in their objective: private firms maximize profits, while public firms maximize total surplus. If marginal costs are increasing, public firms do not supply the entire market, leaving room for private firms to produce and possibly cooperate by restricting output. The presence of public firms makes collusion among private firms harder to sustain, and maybe even unprofitable. As the number of private firms increases, collusion may become easier or harder to sustain. Privatization makes collusion easier to sustain, and is socially detrimental whenever firms are able to collude after privatization (which is always the case if they are sufficiently patient). Coordinated effects thus reverse the traditional result according to which privatization is socially desirable if there are many firms in the industry.     

Does Institutional Linkage of Bank‐MFI Foster Inclusive Financial Development Even in the Presence of MFI Frauds?

Growing reports indicate the presence of frauds in microfinance institutions (MFIs), as it can occur in any organization in countries where there are weak institutions, weak rule of law, and fraudulent behavior of MFI officers for personal gain. While there are increasing calls to launch financial governance of these NGO MFIs, there are concerns as to whether frauds of this nature can damage MFIs’ contributions to the credit market, particularly in the bank‐linkage program where the NGO MFIs act as third party intermediary. The purpose of this study was to analyze the collusion decisions faced by MFIs and their impact on the bank‐linkage program, which has been offered as a solution to help overcome adverse selection and moral hazard problems in the credit market by harnessing local information via MFIs. Our results show that even when there is a chance of collusion between MFI and the borrower, the linkage between MFI and bank can still increase the probability that the borrower puts in full effort, and therefore decreases the probabilities of both credit rationing and strategic default. Such linkage in financing viable projects can make micro‐financing more effective in achieving inclusive financial development and thereby poverty reduction in rural areas.     

Multiplicity in general financial equilibrium with portfolio constraints

This paper explores the role of portfolio constraints in generating multiplicity of equilibrium. We present a simple financial market economy with two goods and two households, households who face constraints on their ability to take unbounded positions in risky stocks. Absent such constraints, equilibrium allocation is unique and is Pareto efficient. With one portfolio constraint in place, the efficient equilibrium is still possible; however, additional inefficient equilibria in which the constraint is binding may emerge. We show further that with portfolio constraints cum incomplete markets, there may be a continuum of equilibria; adding incomplete markets may lead to real indeterminacy.