Multimarket contact, imperfect monitoring, and implicit collusion

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Matsushima, H
• 署名单位: University of Tokyo
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1006/jeth.2000.2708
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 158-178
• 关键词: multimarket contact; Infinitely repeated games; imperfect monitoring; low discount factor; EFFICIENCY

摘要

This paper presents a theoretical foundation to the possibility that multimarket contact enhances firms' ability to sustain implicit collusion. When firms operate in a single market and cannot perfectly monitor their opponents choices, it is impossible to achieve efficiency even if these firms have a Long-term strategic relationship. We show that when firms encounter each other in a number of distinct markets and the extent of this market contact is large, efficiency can be approximately sustained by a perfect equilibrium. This efficiency with imperfect monitoring holds under almost the same condition on the discount factor as with perfect monitoring. (C) 2001 Academic Press.