Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Public Economics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Public Economics

Single Bidders And Tacit Collusion In Highway Procurement Auctions, David R. Barrus, Frank A. Scott Jr. May 2017

Single Bidders And Tacit Collusion In Highway Procurement Auctions, David R. Barrus, Frank A. Scott Jr.

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

Collusion in auctions can take different forms, one of which is refraining from bidding. Such behavior may be overt or tacit.Certain aspects of highway procurement auctions facilitate collusive outcomes. We collect data on asphalt paving auctions conducted by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet from 2005 to 2007. We analyze both the bid participation decision and the pricing decision. We include variables that affect firm’s’ costs as well as variables that capture competitive and strategic effects. Most importantly, we determine the potential service area of each asphalt plant and use that information to determine the potential bidders for each paving project. We …


Cguppi: Scoring Incentives To Engage In Parallel Accommodating Conduct, Serge Moresi, David Reitman, Steven C. Salop, Yianis Sarafidis Aug 2015

Cguppi: Scoring Incentives To Engage In Parallel Accommodating Conduct, Serge Moresi, David Reitman, Steven C. Salop, Yianis Sarafidis

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We propose an index for scoring coordination incentives, which we call the “coordination GUPPI” or cGUPPI. While the cGUPPI can be applied to a wide range of coordinated effects concerns, it is particularly relevant for gauging concerns of parallel accommodating conduct (PAC), a concept that received due prominence in the 2010 U.S. Horizontal Merger Guidelines. PAC is a type of coordinated conduct whereby a firm raises price with the expectation—but without any prior agreement—that one or more other firms will follow and match the price increase. The cGUPPI is the highest uniform price increase that all the would-be coordinating firms …