Logo image
Trade costs and multimarket collusion
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Trade costs and multimarket collusion

Eric W. Bond and Constantinos Syropoulos
The Rand journal of economics, v 39(4), pp 1080-1104
01 Dec 2008

Abstract

Business & Economics Economics Social Sciences
Contrary to conventional wisdom, this article argues that trade liberalization may facilitate collusion and reduce welfare. With the help of a duopoly model in which firms interact repeatedly in multiple markets, we first show that, if trade costs (i.e., tariffs/transport costs) and discount factors are not too high, efficient cartel agreements necessitate the cross-hauling of goods, as that entails lower deviation incentives. In this setting, we then demonstrate that reciprocal trade liberalization always raises total output when trade costs are within a range whose lower bound exceeds a threshold level, but may reduce total output (and thus be pro-collusive) when trade costs are below that threshold level.

Metrics

12 Record Views
29 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Economics
Logo image