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Institutional authority and collusion
Author(s) -
Sonntag Axel,
Zizzo Daniel John
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
southern economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 2325-8012
pISSN - 0038-4038
DOI - 10.1002/soej.12065
Subject(s) - collusion , business , microeconomics , industrial organization , tacit collusion , production (economics) , economics , monetary economics
A “collusion puzzle” exists by which, even though increasing the number of firms reduces the ability to tacitly collude, and leads to a collapse in collusion in experimental markets with three or more firms, in natural markets there are such numbers of firms colluding successfully. We present an experiment showing that, if managers are deferential toward an authority, firms can induce more collusion by delegating production decisions to middle managers and providing suitable informal nudges. This holds not only with two but also with four firms. We are also able to distinguish compliance effects from coordination effects.