文章基本信息

标题：On the workings of a cartel: evidence from the Norwegian Cement Industry from 1955-1968
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作者：Lars Hendrik Röller Frode Steen
期刊名称：Discussion Papers / Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration
印刷版ISSN：0804-6824
出版年度：2003
卷号：2003
出版社：Bergen
摘要：Using the institutional set-up of the Norwegian cement industry, in particular its sharing rule, we are able to identify the workings of a cartel in some detail. We focus on the two problems that any cartel faces: deciding on domestic quantitiy as well as on the distribution of rents. Given data on prices, production, and exports, we are able to identify marginal costs as well as the eﬀectiveness of the cartel. We ﬁnd that the cement cartel has been ineﬀective in the sense that the sharing rule induces ”overproduction” and exporting below marginal costs. In this sense it is consumers, not ﬁrms, that beneﬁt from the sharing rule. We ﬁnd that the ineﬀectiveness of the cartel is becoming so large that domestic welfare of a merger to monopoly would in fact be positive at around 1968, which is exactly when the merger actually took place! However, we also show that competition would have resulted in even higher welfare gains over the entire sample.