The Influence of Collusion on Price Changes: New Evidence from Major Cartel Cases

20 Pages Posted: 13 Jul 2010

See all articles by Korbinian von Blanckenburg

Korbinian von Blanckenburg

Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe

Alexander Geist

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Konstantin A. Kholodilin

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

Date Written: May 1, 2010

Abstract

In this paper, we compare the distribution of price changes between collusive and noncollusive periods for ten major cartels. The first moments focus on previous research. We extend the discussion to the third (skewness) and fourth (kurtosis) moments. However, none of the above descriptive statistics can be considered as a robust test allowing a differentiation between competition and cartel. Therefore, we implement the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. According to our results, 8 out of 10 cartels were successful in controlling the market price for a number of years. The proposed methodology may be used for antitrust screening and regulatory purposes.

Keywords: Cartel Detection, Collusion, Competition Policy

JEL Classification: L10, L60

Suggested Citation

von Blanckenburg, Korbinian and Geist, Alexander and Kholodilin, Konstantin A., The Influence of Collusion on Price Changes: New Evidence from Major Cartel Cases (May 1, 2010). DIW Berlin Discussion Paper No. 1004, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1639452 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1639452

Korbinian Von Blanckenburg (Contact Author)

Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe ( email )

Liebigstraße 87
Lemgo, 32657
Germany

Alexander Geist

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

Konstantin A. Kholodilin

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

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