Do Agency Contracts Facilitate Upstream Collusion?
Do Agency Contracts Facilitate Upstream Collusion?
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DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.3174264
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发表时间：
2019-10
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Yoshifumi Hino;Susumu Sato;Yusuke Zennyo
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文献类型：
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作者：
Yoshifumi Hino;Susumu Sato;Yusuke Zennyo
我们研究代理合同是否比传统的批发合同更容易促进上游制造商之间的勾结。我们与垄断平台和多个制造商开发了无限重复的博弈，并表明代理合同不会促进上游串通。相比之下，在具有竞争平台的扩展模型中，我们得到了相反的结果，即代理合同促进了上游共谋。特别有趣的是，竞争平台可能有动机在代理合同下促进上游共谋的形成，因为接受共谋可以作为他们将佣金率维持在高水平的协调手段。这些结果对最近几起与在线平台共谋和协调有关的反垄断案件具有重要意义。
We examine whether agency contracts, more than traditional wholesale contracts, facilitate collusion among upstream manufacturers. We develop an infinitely repeated game with a monopoly platform and multiple manufacturers, and show that the agency contract does not facilitate upstream collusion. By contrast, in an extended model with competing platforms, we obtain the opposite result that agency contracts facilitate upstream collusion. It is particularly interesting that competing platforms might have an incentive to foster the formation of upstream collusion under agency contracts because accepting the collusion can act as a coordination device for them to maintain their commission rate at a high level. These results hold numerous implications for several recent antitrust cases related to collusion and coordination in online platforms.