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ABSTRACT The tendency to be permissive in face of a discriminatory situation is called collusion. The present study aimed to define and characterize collusion, and identify the variables connected to it, considering the perspective of different identity groups. Participants were 31 individuals divided in seven focus groups. The analysis indicated four categories connected to collusion: a) Close Relations: valuable interactions through which individuals learn behavioral patterns that lead to permissiveness; b) Group Identity: social identities, and intergroup relations patterns; c) Situation: characteristics of the situation in which discrimination is observed; and d) Cost-Effective Balance: perception the individuals have regarding the impact of their actions on the context and the cost attached to it.

This study aims to analyze the structure of the emergence and maintenance of the cartel mechanism as an informal organization and the measures to deter bid-rigging. We propose an agent-based bid-rigging norms model and validate it with a mathematical model. We clarify that the auction system primarily used in public procurements has a structure inducing bid-rigging in which meta-norms are unnecessary. We also show that punishment for deviation from bid-rigging plays a critical role in establishing and maintaining it. In addition, we explore the authorities' actions to deter bid-rigging by examining three measures: the flexible setting of reserve prices, the administrative surcharge and leniency system under the Antimonopoly Law, and applying the bid-rigging offense under the Criminal Law. As a result, the study reveals that the administrative surcharge and the leniency system are insufficient to deter bid-rigging, and the adequate measures are the flexible setting of reserve prices and applying the bid-rigging offense. Furthermore, the simultaneous implementation of these three measures more effectively enables deterring bid-rigging.

The construction industry has long been criticized for recurring accidents, wherein opportunistic behaviors are the primary cause of losing faith and increasing risk, infringing upon the interests of the state, society and people. While government regulation can be crucial in curbing opportunistic behaviors, the existing mixed strategy game model fails to accurately capture the strategic interactions between the government, owner, supervisor, and contractor. To bridge this gap, we propose a multi-stage dynamic game model with asymmetric information in the context of a typical construction project, wherein two urgent opportunistic behaviors may arise: moral hazard and covert collusion. According to project characteristics, the regulatory issues are further classified as hidden information for general projects and hidden effort for dominant projects. On this basis, the government's optimal regulation strategies are derived, i.e., the optimal fines for poor quality and the optimal fine coefficient for quality effort reduction. Subsequently, several significant managerial implications are presented to summarize and analyze impacts of government regulation on construction projects. The findings show that government regulation can achieve systemic optimality but may hurt the owner's interests in some cases. This could potentially hinder the healthy development of the construction industry as the owner may forgo purchasing the construction project. Furthermore, general projects are more vulnerable to opportunistic behaviors as opposed to dominant projects. The developed model and derived regulatory strategy can assist the government in more effectively governing and controlling opportunistic behaviors. This research also contributes several valuable managerial insights into the domain of government regulation on construction projects.

Reputation evaluation is an effective measure for maintaining secure Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems, but there are still several challenges when applied in IoT-enabled pumped storage power stations (PSPSs), such as the limited resources of intelligent inspection devices and the threat of single-point and collusion attacks. To address these challenges, in this paper we present ReIPS, a secure cloud-based reputation evaluation system designed to manage intelligent inspection devices' reputations in IoT-enabled PSPSs. Our ReIPS incorporates a resource-rich cloud platform to collect various reputation evaluation indexes and perform complex evaluation operations. To resist single-point attacks, we present a novel reputation evaluation model that combines backpropagation neural networks (BPNNs) with a point reputation-weighted directed network model (PR-WDNM). The BPNNs objectively evaluate device point reputations, which are further integrated into PR-WDNM to detect malicious devices and obtain corrective global reputations. To resist collusion attacks, we introduce a knowledge graph-based collusion device identification method that calculates behavioral and semantic similarities to accurately identify collusion devices. Simulation results show that our ReIPS outperforms existing systems regarding reputation evaluation performance, particularly in single-point and collusion attack scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning has evolved and expanded as an interdisciplinary research method for educational sciences. However, cheating detection of test collusion among multiple examinees or sets of examinees with unusual answer patterns using machine learning techniques has remained relatively unexplored. This study investigates collusion on multiple‐choice tests by introducing feature representation methodologies and machine learning algorithms that can be jointly used as a promising method; they can be used not only to detect individual examinees involved in the collusion but also to evaluate test collusion with or without the groups of potentially dishonest examinees identified a priori. Furthermore, using small‐sample examples, the visual detection procedures of the current study were articulated to help identify questionable item response groups and simultaneously focus on the specific individuals providing anomalous answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the repeated Bertrand duopoly with capacity constraints, we introduce a sales maximization rationing rule, instead of a standard rationing rule, Efficient rule (E rule). Under our new rule, when the demand of a firm with a lower price exceeds its capacity, the consumers who are willing to buy at that price are rationed to that firm according to their unwillingness to buy. We find that the maximum one-shot total payoff under our rule is not less than that under E rule at any capacities; it is achieved by an asymmetric price pair rather than a symmetric monopoly price pair and it is strictly greater than that under E rule unless each firm's capacity is too large. Under the one-shot total payoff maximization, total surplus under our rule is also equal to or greater than that under E rule at any capacities. Hence, our rule is also appealing to the social planner, and it is implementable due to information technology which collects information about the consumers' willingness to pay. In the repeated game, patient firms can achieve the total payoff maximization by an equilibrium under our rule. Moreover, a range of discount factors within which the total payoff maximization can be sustained under our rule is wider than that under E rule at some capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of multiple authorities in multi-authority ciphertext policy attribute based encryption (CPABE) schemes hinders an adversary's ability to compromise security. As each authority is responsible to provide secret keys to the users, thus enforcement of finegrained access control should be carefully designed to ensure data confidentiality. The current study critically reviews the methodologies employed to address user-level and attribute-level revocation in the existing studies. The study has focused on the revocation methodology of those CPABE schemes that are implemented using bilinear pairing cryptography for the encryption and Linear Secret Sharing Scheme (LSSS) for the access structure. It has been observed that the approaches implemented in the existing schemes are computationally expensive and are vulnerable to collusion attacks caused by the cloud and revoked users. Thus, an efficient proxy-based and collusion resistant multi-authority revocable CPABE framework (PCMR-CPABE) is proposed in the current study. The proposed framework is decentralized, dynamic, scalable, and ensures forward/backward secrecy. Additionally, the proposed framework is computationally efficient and is practical to implement as it does not require secret key or group secret key and ciphertext update to address revocation. Furthermore, the incorporation of time and identity-based components allows the proposed framework to resist collusion attacks efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harrington (2022) provides a novel theory that explains how a private information exchange involving gross list prices can lead to higher transaction prices. On this basis, he considers that private list price exchanges between competitors should be presumed to harm competition. The theory, which has received much attention in the context of the EU trucks cartel case, was recently referred to by the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal as a "unilateral effects" theory, given that it involves no coordination once list prices have been exchanged. Unlike conventional collusion, the theory does not rely on a monitoring and retaliation mechanism. Given its novelty and relevance for recent competition cases, we consider it useful to explore its potential limitations. We show that both the scope for and magnitude of harm are sensitive to key modelling parameters such as the number of firms, the degree of product substitutability, and the level of marginal cost—sometimes in opposite directions. We also show that there may be no scope for the anticompetitive effect when firms are capacity constrained. Finally, we discuss several additional qualitative aspects that may undermine the theory of harm: the adaptability of internal pricing processes over time, the lack of verifiability of exchanged list price information (especially when the exchange is private), and possible procompetitive or competitively neutral reasons for the conduct. We conclude that, although Harrington provides an insightful addition to the wider literature on the competitive effects of information exchanges, the effects of list price exchanges are not sufficiently unambiguous to justify a general presumption of competitive harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational contracts are typically modeled as being between a principal and an agent, such as a firm owner and a supplier. Yet, in a variety of organizations, relationships are overseen by an intermediary such as a manager. Such arrangements open the door for collusion between the manager and the agent. This paper develops a theory of such managed relational contracts. We show that managed relational contracts differ from principal–agent ones in important ways. First, kickbacks from the agent can help solve the manager's commitment problem. When commitment is difficult, this can result in higher agent effort than the principal could incentivize directly. Second, making relationships more valuable enables more collusion and hence can reduce effort. We also analyze the principal's delegation problem and show that she may or may not benefit from entrusting the relationship to a manager. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a behavioral contract theory idea, "shading" (Hart and Moore (2008). "Contracts as Reference Points." Quarterly Journal of Economics 123 (1): 1–48)) as a component of ex-post haggling (addressed by Coase (1937. "The Nature of the Firm." Economica 4 (16): 386–405) and Williamson (1975. Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. New York: Free Press)) into the collusion model à la Tirole (1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations." Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 2: 181–214, 1992. "Collusion and the Theory of Organizations." In Advances in Economic Theory: The Sixth World Congress, edited by J. J. Laffont. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), thereby constructing a new model of hierarchical organization. By integrating the two ideas, i.e. collusion and shading, we enrich the existing collusion model, thereby obtaining a new result for Collusion-proof versus Equilibrium Collusion. The basic idea is that the increase in shading pressure strengthens the incentive for collusion, thereby making it difficult to implement collusion-proof incentive schemes, which leads to the Equilibrium Collusion. In addition, we also provide a micro-foundation for ex-post haggling costs, where we view rent-seeking associated with collusive behavior and ex-post haggling generated from aggrievement and shading as the two sources of the costs. This model is used to examine the optimal organizational design problem as an optimal response to the trade-off between gross total surplus and ex-post haggling costs, and to take a step further the idea of efficient organization design (Milgrom (1988. "Employment Contracts, Influence Activities and Efficient Organization Design." Journal of Political Economy 96: 42–60)). We believe that our model could help provide a deep understanding of resource allocation and decision processes in hierarchical organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study collusion between a public firm and a private firm facing linear demand and quadratic costs. We characterize the collusive outcome that results from Nash bargaining and compare it to the non-cooperative outcome. If the public firm's taste for consumer surplus is mild, both firms reduce output (as in a private duopoly). If it is intermediate, while the public firm reduces output, the private firm expands output to such an extent that total output increases. If it is strong, the private firm's output expansion does not compensate for the public firm's output contraction, and thus total output decreases. We also characterize collusion sustainability, and assess the impact of relative bargaining power, degree of cost convexity, public firm's taste for total surplus, and cost asymmetry. We conclude that, by reducing the productive inefficiency that is caused by the public firm being more expansionary, collusion may lead to higher profits and consumer surplus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study price competition in a heterogeneous triopoly market where two firms are commonly owned by the same institutional shareholders, whereas the third firm is owned by independent shareholders. With such a mixed ownership structure the common owners have an incentive to coordinate their firms' behavior. In contrast to direct coordination of price decisions, delegation to managers enables indirect coordination via the designs of the manager compensation contracts. Compared to direct owner collusion, this more sophisticated type of indirect coordination leads to even higher firm profits and to an even higher loss of social welfare: the tragedy of common holdings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes coordination in tacit collusion when firms' discount factor is private information. We consider an infinitely repeated duopoly where two states of the world randomly occur, with different incentives for collusion. Depending on its own discount factor, a firm chooses cooperative behavior in both states (patient), in none of the states (impatient) or in one state (mildly patient). The presence of different states affects the strategic role of beliefs. A mildly patient firm has an incentive in "faking patience" to get the deviation profit. Interestingly, this effect prevents or delays collusion when the belief in patience is strong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Test collusion (TC) is a form of cheating in which, examinees operate in groups to alter normal item responses. TC is becoming increasingly common, especially within high-stakes, large-scale examinations. However, research on TC detection methods remains scarce. The present article proposes a new algorithm for TC detection, inspired by variable selection within high-dimensional statistical analysis. The algorithm relies only on item responses and supports different response similarity indices. Simulation and practical studies were conducted to (1) compare the performance of the new algorithm against the recently developed clique detector approach, and (2) verify the performance of the new algorithm in a large-scale test setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collusion permeates United States government procurement despite the strict statutory regime in place to confront it, specifically the Department of Justice (DoJ)Antitrust Division’s Leniency Program. The United States should look to other existing statutory regimes that have been successful in detecting and prosecuting other actions to supplement the Leniency Program, such as the False Claims Act (FCA). By incorporating a whistleblower program like that of the FCA, complete with a monetary incentive, the DoJ can increase instances of detecting and prosecuting collusion in government contracts by simply modifying existing centers within the Antitrust Division to process whistleblower information and qui tam suits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of present bias on trigger pricing strategies that are used to support a cartel in a market where firms can only observe a noisy price signal. The present bias of firm management is modelled by using quasi-hyperbolic discounting that the discount factor between the present and next period is β δ , and between any two adjacent periods later it is δ. We demonstrate that there is a threshold value β ̲ (δ) , which is decreasing in δ. For β ≥ β ̲ (δ) , we show that there exists a Nash reversion trigger strategy for the cartel, featuring lower prices, higher outputs and longer periodic price wars. As a consequence, the trigger price, which is shown to be proportional to the cartel price, is always lower than that in the Green-Porter model. • We consider the impact of present bias on cartel strategy under a noisy price signal. • The present bias of firm management is modelled by using quasi-hyperbolic discounting. • The negative relationship between the optimal output and the discount factor δ is restored. • The cartel strategy shows lower prices, higher outputs and longer price wars under present bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is an important branch of quantum cryptography. Identity authentication is a significant means to achieve information protection, which can effectively confirm the identity information of both communication parties. Due to the importance of information security, more and more communications require identity authentication. We propose a d-level (t , n) threshold QSS scheme in which both sides of the communication use mutually unbiased bases for mutual identity authentication. In the secret recovery phase, the sharing of secrets that only the participant holds will not be disclosed or transmitted. Therefore, external eavesdroppers will not get any information about secrets at this phase. This protocol is more secure, effective, and practical. Security analysis shows that this scheme can effectively resist intercept–resend attacks, entangle–measure attacks, collusion attacks, and forgery attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho Politico is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper studies market distortions due to farm support policies. Using a recently implemented Price Deficiency Payments (PDP) policy in India, we examine how PDP affects farm‐gate prices and crop supply. We document a new channel, the fall in reservation price of farmers under PDP, behind the decline in farm‐gate prices. This impact depends on the magnitude of the deficiency payments and can lead to a supply glut and price crash. Empirically, the scheme led to a 4% decrease in farm‐gate prices and a 51% increase in market arrivals for black‐gram, a crop with a high magnitude of PDP. Using bid‐level data on crop auctions, we rule out collusion among the market participants, another potential channel for price crash under PDP. The effects of the policy are transitory and disappear after the policy is withdrawn. In terms of welfare effects, this scheme is associated with a monetary loss of INR 1 billion. We discuss an alternate payment scheme that can reduce such losses. In summary, our results extend the current understanding of PDP schemes and contribute to the optimal design of such policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collusion between governments and enterprises has occurred in many economies around the world in the context of government investment projects and tenders. Not only is collusion an illegal act, but it may also lead to learning and imitation by non-colluding parties. Therefore, to control collusion and ensure the quality of government investment projects, investigating the spread of collusion in the bidding process of such projects is important. This study presents a simulation of the diffusion process of collusion among multiple entities through NetLogo, drawing on a contagious disease model. The effectiveness of the hypothesised control tools is validated through the changing trend of collusion in bidding in China. The findings provide a new approach to controlling collusion based on the perspective of the proliferation of bidding behaviour and have some reference value for the government to formulate policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the collusive stability of downstream competition in a vertical market with network externalities and cost asymmetry. A dynamic collusion game is constructed, and backward induction is employed to solve the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. We show that larger network externalities lead to less collusive incentive for an inefficient firm, while for an efficient firm, this depends on the efficiency gap. An increase in network externalities will destabilize the downstream collusion when the cost asymmetry is large and network externalities are relatively weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tarikh Beyhaqi contains accurate information about the Ghaznavid period. ‘Khishkhaneh Herat’ is one of the anecdotes in this book, which deals with how Sultan Mahmud relates to his son Masood. The application of the theory of symbolic interaction to the verbal and non-verbal connections between the characters provides a more accurate understanding of the situation of the Ghaznavid court and their daily lives. The premise is that variables such as false representation, idealization, mystery, team collusion, hypocrisy, multi-kinship, maintaining dramatic control, and action and reaction in this anecdote make the application of the theory of symbolic interaction convincing. The analysis of these partial variables in Khishkhaneh Herat indicates an all-encompassing and macro-sociological reality and shows the unstable cultural atmosphere as well as secrecy, inspection, pretense, incoherence, and extreme distrust in the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider dynamic pricing and demand learning in a duopoly with multinomial logit demand, both from the perspective where firms compete against each other and from the perspective where firms aim to collude to increase revenues. We show that joint‐revenue maximization is not always beneficial to both firms compared to the Nash equilibrium, and show that several other axiomatic notions of collusion can be constructed that are always beneficial to both firms and a threat to consumer welfare. Next, we construct a price algorithm and prove that it learns to charge supra‐competitive prices if deployed by both firms, and learns to respond optimally against a class of competitive algorithms. Our algorithm includes a mechanism to infer demand observations from the competitor's price path, so that our algorithm can operate in a setting where prices are public but demand is private information. Our work contributes to the understanding of well‐performing price policies in a competitive multi‐agent setting, and shows that collusion by algorithms is possible and deserves the attention of lawmakers and competition policy regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Engineering Management / Gongcheng Guanli Xuebao is the property of Journal of Engineering Management Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We investigate how well firms can collude with partial communication in relation to full communication. We find that firms vary their communication strategies with network structures. In the networks that have either an isolated firm or full communication, more players send "pure promises" suggesting everyone select the collusive actions unconditionally. In the network with leadership, more players send a "promise and threat" which includes a reward for collusion and a punishment for deviating. Because of the inability to communicate in the network with the isolated firm and the high frequency of deviation and punishment in the network with leadership, the full communication network achieves significantly higher payoff than partial communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic and Republican administrations and the Supreme Court, in implementing antitrust law as “a consumer welfare prescription” over the past 40 years, reached a consensus on two important issues. First, antitrust enforcers and courts have presumed that corporate mergers generally advance, or at least do not threaten, consumer welfare. Second, enforcers and courts have treated horizontal collusion, among both big and small actors, as the principal evil for antitrust enforcers to root out. This deference to the consolidation of business property and hostility to horizontal agreements have concentrated power in the economy among a small elite.For antitrust law to redistribute power downward, a radical philosophical change is necessary. First, antitrust law should tightly restrict the consolidation of corporate property. Second, policymakers should recognize that collusion among powerless actors can represent socially desirable cooperation. Reconstructing antitrust law in this manner would transfer power in markets away from corporate executives and financial interests to workers, professionals, and small firms.

Accounting fraud is the intentional manipulation of accounting data to create a false appearance of corporate financial health or obtain personal benefits. If problems like this occur continuously, it will cause fraud that is detrimental to many parties. Therefore, efforts to minimize fraud need to do an in-depth analysis of the causes of fraud. One of them is analyzing the tendency of public accountant fraud through the fraud hexagon perspective. Georgios L. Vousinas developed the fraud hexagon in 2019. The fraud hexagon explains that fraud can occur due to six factors, namely, 1) pressure, 2) opportunity, 3) rationalization, 4) capability, 5) arrogance and 6) collusion. This theoretical concept is the basis of this research. This research aims to obtain empirical evidence regarding the influence of the fraud hexagon factor on the tendency of public accountant fraud accompanied by a moderating variable of professional ethics. The questionnaire method was used to collect data for analysis. The sample in this study is all public accountants working at public accounting firms registered with the Indonesian Ministry of Finance (Kementerian Keuangan) in 2022. The total sample is 107 respondents. To analyze data Moderated Regression Analysis (MRA) was used. The results of this study are pressure, rationalization, opportunity, capability, and arrogance do not affect public accountant fraud tendencies. Collusion is a factor that influences the tendency of public accountants to commit fraud. The ethics of the accounting profession do not moderate the hexagon fraud factor's effect on public accountants' tendency to commit fraud. Other related parties can use the results of this study to prevent public accountant fraud through policies related to collusive practices because only collusion increases the desire of public accountants to commit fraud.

Computers have been used in higher education to assess students for decades. Software to allow assessments to be delivered to students (often referred to as computer-assisted assessment, or CAA), became widely commercially available in the 1990s, and many institutions began to experiment with these packages. The increasing availability of networked computers by the mid-1990s allowed assessments and other educational services to be delivered online with web browsers but the problem of this online test is collusion and cheating. As on-line examinations become more popular, perhaps with the possibility of students being allowed to sit them remotely, the opportunity for cheating could be much higher than the traditional examination. An examination that is sat at a distance need some form of quality assurance to prevent or detect cheating and collusion between candidates. Multiple choice question (MCQ) examinations are of particular interest in assessment. Hence this article focuses on overview of various software’s like LERTAP, The Harpp-Hogan index, Scrutiny!, Integrity and SCheck that can tackle the problem of collusion in online MCQ examination.

We analyze the role of technology levels in collusion and welfare in Cournot duopoly set up with a linear demand and quadratic costs. We show that for relatively inefficient technologies, the collusive profit is dominated by the Cournot-Nash profit; thus, the firms with not-so good technologies would not collude. We also show that as technology improves, the collusive profit dominates the Cournot-Nash profit, which creates an incentive for collusion, i.e., innovation would lead to collusion. We also show that, for very good/bad technology, innovation would not be anticonsumers’ welfare, whereas for the intermediate one, it may be.

This article proposes a game-theoretic equilibrium concept promoting endogenous cooperation through self-interested agents optimally choosing how much they care about their opponents' welfare. Rationally altruistic equilibria always exist in finite games as long as a publicly observed signal is available. Characterizations of the equilibrium concept highlight that it is most likely to have a bite when players' interests are sufficiently dissimilar but not diametrically opposed to each other—such as in the prisoner's dilemma. In the presence of more than two players, rational altruism can take an opportunistic form and serve as a device of collusion through implicit coalition formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a qualitative empirical study of elite collusion and its influence on village elections and rural land development in China. Drawing on ethnographic data collected from two Chinese villages, it investigates how village cadres collude with other rural elites, using bribery, gift-giving and lavish banquets, to establish reciprocal ties with township officials and other public officials. Meanwhile, the officials make use of formal organizations to corruptly obtain profits and form alliances with village elites. The article examines how rural elites, especially village cadres, use this collusion to profit from the misuse of villagers' collectively owned assets, the manipulation of village elections and the suppression of anti-corruption protests. It also offers new descriptive evidence of how recent reforms designed to strengthen the Party's overall leadership in rural governance may have actually facilitated elite capture and grassroots corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building design departments and in-house construction teams were dismantled and faith put into private sector design practices commissioned by procurement departments who mostly had little construction expertise, so the approach to tendering repair and maintenance was "simplified". Housing management staff were also cut so fewer staff are left to deal with desperate tenants living in poorly maintained homes. The group was meeting just when the deplorable decisions taken by the local authority and their tenant management organization were emerging in the public inquiry. [Extracted from the article]

We study the events alleged in recent Norwegian salmon industry antitrust cases to explore the relationship between vertical integration, public price indexes, and collusion. The salmon market provides an intriguing opportunity to study these issues, as there was a vertical merger followed by a reformulation of the methodology by which prices were reported for a new price index. We explore whether the confluence of the merger and the creation of the Nasdaq price index is associated with evidence consistent with collusion. JEL codes : L13, L41, L42, Q22 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2014, Thai Union, the parent company of Chicken of the Sea canned tuna announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Bumble Bee tuna from Lion Capital. In the course of standard merger review, the Department of Justice subpoenaed the merging parties as well as the parent company of StarKist to investigate possible collusion among the major producers of canned tuna. This led to several class action lawsuits and a criminal conviction for price fixing. This paper describes how these firms were alleged to have colluded and uses retail scanner data to document how prices and promotional activity changed while the cartel was in operation. Avenues for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been allegations that the dominant meatpackers have conspired to raise beef prices in violation of §1 of the Sherman Act. In this article, I examine the market structure and find it to be conducive to collusion, which may be tacit or overt. The article analyzes the allegations of collusion in a partial conspiracy model. The empirical evidence appears to be consistent with the implications of the theory. The article also considers evidentiary problems for the plaintiffs as well as the pursuit of private damages and public sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review some central conclusions from the economics literature regarding the likely impact of information sharing by industry suppliers on consumer welfare. We also review the specific information sharing activities undertaken by Agri Stats. We conclude that although some elements of Agri Stats' activities may have had the potential to enhance consumer welfare, several elements of the activities reflect features of information sharing that the common wisdom suggests are relatively likely to harm consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allegations of collusion are prevalent in many of the major protein markets including beef, chicken, eggs, pork, salmon, tuna, and turkey. The sources of collusion, however, are different across markets. For some markets, like chicken and pork, the collusion was allegedly facilitated through information exchanges using Agri Stats, a data collection and sharing service. In other markets, the collusion was facilitated among parties within the market. There are allegations of collusion in the input markets for some proteins, the output markets for others, and some like chicken and beef have allegations in both. While many of these cases are ongoing, there have been a few cases where settlements have been reached or the courts have decided on a verdict. This introduction provides a snapshot of the many articles in our symposium that specialize on one protein market or another. We provide a brief review of each case, as well as emphasize the importance of this research given how substantial the protein markets are in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A principal wants to procure multiple homogeneous units from finitely many agents. Each agent has an increasing and convex cost function, whose exact shape is unknown to the principal. Utility is quasilinear in money. We study which mechanisms are strategy-proof and robust to collusion, both when the agents can exchange money and physical units (reallocation-proofness) and when they cannot (group strategy-proofness). To achieve reallocation-proofness, the principal must offer the agents a fixed price per unit. While group-strategy-proof mechanisms can be more complex, they are inefficient and run the risk of procuring no units at all. We characterize the set of group-strategy-proof and anonymous mechanisms with a uniform price. A standout feature is that the number of potential prices is bounded above by the number of agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many industries consist of large firms that compete in multiple geographic markets. Such overlap, defined as multimarket contact (MMC), may facilitate tacit collusion and soften competition. We examine the effects of MMC on health insurance prices and quality using comprehensive data on the Medicare Advantage (MA) market from 2008 through 2015. Our identification strategy exploits two plausibly exogenous changes to MMC: (1) out‐of‐market mergers; and (2) policy‐driven changes in the benchmark rates of other markets. Our results consistently support the mutual forbearance hypothesis, where we find that prices are significantly higher and high‐quality plans less pervasive as MMC increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impacts of downstream CSR on upstream tacit collusion. Considering an infinitely repeated game with trigger strategy punishment, we find that how consumer‐oriented CSR affects the stability of upstream collusion basically hinges on the downstream competition modes. Specifically, CSR behavior facilitates (hinders) upstream collusion under downstream quantity (price) competition. For given degree of CSR and product substitutability, upstream collusion is always less stable under downstream price competition. In addition, higher degree of product substitutability obstructs collusion, regardless of downstream competition mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we reimagine a future that escapes dichotomies of progress and regress? What does such a radically reimagined future look like? This paper develops an answer in two parts by arguing for a vision of the future as unstable, calling for modes of response that are distinctly democratic. It sets out an imaginary of the future as inescapably precarious; composed of multiple actants in constant relations of collusion and conflict that escape human ordering or control; a future that we, as humans, must embrace precisely as precarious. Such an affirmation calls for a cultivated democratic sensibility. Following post-foundational perspectives, I identify democracy as constituted by contingency and plurality. This is not simply in terms of an openness to plurality, but a cultivated receptivity to modes of activity that operate below and beyond conscious human willing. An ethos that expresses affirming sensitivity to the uncertainties of a precarious future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective environmental management will create a win-win situation for building an ecological civilization with the potential to control the COVID-19 pandemic. From the perspective of government-enterprise collusion (GEC), this study analyzes the moderating effects of the officials' promotion incentives and turnover on the effectiveness of environmental regulations utilizing a panel dataset on 276 cities in China from 2003 to 2019. The study reveals the following empirical results: First, promotion incentives positively moderate the relationship between environmental regulations and environmental pollution, mainly air pollution; results for water pollution are not significant. Compared with general cities, the positive moderating effect of promotion incentives in high-level cities is weaker and the negative moderating effect is more potent. Additionally, the moderating effect of promotion incentives is predominantly positive in the new developmental stage from 2013 to 2019. Second, the negative moderating effect of officials' turnover on the effectiveness of environmental regulations is mainly observed for water pollution but not evident for air pollution. Compared with high-level cities, officials' turnover in general cities is more conducive to the effectiveness of environmental regulations. These findings provide beneficial insights for promoting green growth by improving official governance and destroying GEC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a quantity competition model where a subset of firms belongs to a holding firm that can delegate or centralize the output decisions while the other (decentralized) firms make decisions independently. We show that output centralization may have a procompetitive effect because it reduces firms' incentives to collude among those firms whose decision is made independently. Furthermore, we find that the merger of decentralized firms may also reduce the incentives to collude. Therefore, in our setup, one can interpret that the antitrust authorities should be wary regarding the restrictions imposed on merging firms concerning the decision-making structure because, under some circumstances, centralization might prevent the market as a whole to collude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a standard two‐stage elimination (Tullock) contest where multiple (team) players can perfectly and publicly collude with each other throughout. We analyze and compare equilibrium outcomes under various seedings where the collusive players meet or are separated in the group stage. We identify the impact of collusion on the contest organizer and non‐collusive players, as well as the organizer's optimal seeding. We find that collusion, while always undermining fairness of the competition, can hurt or benefit the organizer, depending on the discriminatory powers of the two stages. We also discuss issues such as sequential group‐stage competitions, comparison between the elimination contest and the corresponding one‐shot contest, secret collusion, and large discriminatory powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]