Cartelization, Cartel Breakdown, and Price Behavior: Evidence from the German Cement Industry

Kai Hüschelrath () and Tobias Veith ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Kai Hueschelrath

Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, 2016, vol. 16, issue 1, 100 pages

Abstract: We use a unique dataset of about 340,000 market transactions from 36 smaller and larger customers of German cement producers to study the price behavior before and after the breakdown of a German cement cartel. We find that, first, while the cartel agreement was active, cartel members set higher list prices than non-cartel members; however, larger rebates granted by the cartel members led to similar transaction prices. Second, after the cartel breakdown, both cartel- and non-cartel members reduced transaction prices to a far larger extent than list prices. We build on these results and discuss implications for competition policy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Keywords: Competition policy; Price behavior; Cartels; Cement; List prices; Rebates; L12; L21; L41; L61; K21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10842-015-0204-x

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