TY  - UNPD
A1  - Andres, Maximilian
A1  - Bruttel, Lisa
T1  - Communicating Cartel Intentions
T2  - CEPA Discussion Papers
N2  - While the economic harm of cartels is caused by their price-increasing effect, sanctioning by courts rather targets at the underlying process of firms reaching a price-fixing agreement. This paper provides experimental evidence on the question whether such sanctioning meets the economic target, i.e., whether evidence of a collusive meeting of the firms and of the content of their communication reliably predicts subsequent prices. We find that already the mere mutual agreement to meet predicts a strong increase in prices. Conversely, express distancing from communication completely nullifies its otherwise price-increasing effect. Using machine learning, we show that communication only increases prices if it is very explicit about how the cartel plans to behave.
T3  - CEPA Discussion Papers - 77 
KW  - cartel
KW  - collusion
KW  - communication
KW  - machine learning
KW  - experiment
Y1  - 2024
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63846
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-638469
SN  - 2628-653X
IS  - 77
ER  -