Competition, collusion and spatial sales patterns: Theory and evidence

Matthias Hunold, Kai Hüschelrath, Ulrich Laitenberger and Johannes Muthers
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Kai Hueschelrath

No 17-035, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: We study competition in markets with significant transport costs and capacity constraints. We compare the cases of price competition and coordination in a theoretical model and find that when firms compete, they more often serve more distant customers that are closer to plants of competitors. By means of a rich micro-level data set of the cement industry in Germany, we provide empirical evidence in support of this result. Controlling for other potentially confounding factors, such as the number of production plants and demand, we find that the transport distances between suppliers and customers were on average significantly lower in cartel years than in non-cartel years.

Keywords: capacity constraints; cartel; cement; spatial competition; transport costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K21 L11 L41 L61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017, Revised 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-law and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Competition, Collusion, and Spatial Sales Patterns: Theory and Evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Competition, collusion and spatial sales patterns – theory and evidence (2020)
Working Paper: Competition, collusion and spatial sales patterns: Theory and evidence (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:17035

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