On the possibility of welfare-enhancing hard core cartels

I. Bos*, E.A. Pot

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The conventional wisdom is that cartels which merely lead to lower production levels and higher prices are detrimental to social welfare. This paper explores the extent to which this is generally valid. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a hard core cartel that is beneficial for firms and society at large. Considering both strong (with side payments) and weak (without side payments) hard core cartel contracts, we find that (i) both strong and weak welfare-enhancing cartels exist when at least one firm makes a loss on part of its sales in competition, (ii) a welfare-enhancing strong cartel exists whenever there is a difference in unit cost at competitive production levels, and (iii) a welfare-enhancing weak cartel exists when the profit margin on all sales is positive and the cost difference is sufficiently large.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)199-216
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Economics
Volume107
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2012

Keywords

  • Antitrust
  • Cartels
  • Welfare-enhancing collusion
  • COLLUSION
  • COMPETITION
  • ANTITRUST

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