Cartelization, Cartel Breakdown, and Price Behavior: Evidence from the German Cement Industry

Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade - Tập 16 - Trang 81-100 - 2015
Kai Hüschelrath1,2, Tobias Veith3
1Competition and Regulation Research Group, ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany
2University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
3University of Applied Sciences, Rottenburg, Germany

Tóm tắt

We use a unique dataset of about 340,000 market transactions from 36 smaller and larger customers of German cement producers to study the price behavior before and after the breakdown of a German cement cartel. We find that, first, while the cartel agreement was active, cartel members set higher list prices than non-cartel members; however, larger rebates granted by the cartel members led to similar transaction prices. Second, after the cartel breakdown, both cartel- and non-cartel members reduced transaction prices to a far larger extent than list prices. We build on these results and discuss implications for competition policy.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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