Résumé
Several competition authorities have accused petrol retailers of engaging in collusive conduct, which results in alleged "excessive" prices as well as simultaneous price setting across filling stations. However, petrol retailers must exert a substantial amount of market power if they are to dampen competition. Therefore, we propose a method within the spirit of the New-Empirical-Industrial-Organisation, which allows estimating market power held by petrol retailers in terms of a conduct parameter. Based on data for Switzerland, our empirical results suggest a low level of market power held by Swiss petrol retailers.
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Extrait
Estimating Market Power in the Swiss Petrol Retailing Industry - a New Empirical Industrial Organisation Approach
1 Introduction
Petrol prices get substantial public attention, especially during periods characterised by pronounced increases. As a consequence, competition authorities frequently receive complaints about "excessive" petrol prices and collusion believed to exist among retailers initiating in depth antitrust enquiries in several countries during the last 10 years. The findings were quite different and can roughly be categorised into three groups. Some authorities such as that of Switzerlands Wettbewerbskommission or the British Office of Fair Trading concluded that their petrol markets are competitive, meaning that price changes and differences in prices among regions and filling stations reflect market conditions. Others, such as the German Bundeskartellamt or the Dutch Mededingingsautoriteit found infringements with regard to vertical constraints, applied by petrol companies operating on several stages of the chain of petrol-production. Only few authorities identified cartels, in the sense of horizontal agreements on prices. Examples include the French Conseil de la Concurrence, the Italian Autorita Garanta della Concurrenza e del Mercato and especially the Swedish Konkurrensverket, which found compelling evidence of five companies agreeing among themselves on price levels during the late 1990s, when it swooped on companies' offices.While assessing the competitive conditions in an industry, market po...Voir le contenu complet de ce document
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