全球智库信息集成服务系统

Juan-Pablo Montero and Juan Ignacio Guzman, August 2005

Following the structure of many commodity markets, we consider a reduced number of large firms and a competitive fringe of many small suppliers choosing quantities in an infinite horizon setting subject to demand shocks. We show that a collusive agreement among the large firms may not only bring an output contraction but also an output expansion (relative to the non-collusive output level). The latter occurs during booms, when the fringe�s market share is more important, and is due to the strategic substitutability of quantities (we will never observe an output-expanding collusion in a price-setting game). In addition and depending on the fringe�s market share the time at which collusion is most difficult to sustain can be either at booms or recessions.