• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.523-549
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• 2015

This paper investigates an oil refiner's asymmetric behavior in the adjustments of gasoline and diesel prices to changes in his own price and his rivals' prices as well as input costs. An asymmetric error correction model which allows a firm's pricing behavior to the deviation of other firms' prices from their long-run equilibrium level is employed for estimation using weekly data for the period April 2009 to January 2015. Evidence is found that there is a significant degree of asymmetry in the adjustment of wholesale prices to changes in crude oil price. A similar result in regard to the exchange rate is also found by the data. The estimation results for firm's response to changes in other firms' prices indicates that implicit collusion could be more easily exploited in the wholesale petroleum market as results of firms' interaction with each other and anticipation of rivals' pricing behavior. A few refiners show competitive price adjustment in response to the upward deviation of the others' prices from their equilibrium level.

• 월간낙농육우
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.162-172
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• 2014

한국소비자단체협의회는 지난 10월 21일 서울 중구 영동에 위치한 전국은행연합회관 2층 국제회의실에서 '원유가격 연동제, 이대로 좋은가'라는 주제로 토론회를 개최했다. 소비자단체들은 2013년 8월 연동제 첫 시행 시 원유가격 연동제가 제조비용, 유통비용까지 동반 인상시킨다는 문제제기와 함께 제조업체와 유통업체의 암묵적 담합행위 조사 요청 등 소비자 문제로 비화시킨 바 있다. 이날 토론회는 소비자 관점에서 원유가격 연동제의 문제점과 개선안에 대해 각계의 의견을 나누는 자리로 만들고자 소비자단체의 협의체인 한국소비자단체협의회 주최로 개최되었다.

• Journal of Korea Fair Competition Federation
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• no.113
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• pp.15-31
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• 2005

최근 미국의 법원은 담합을 입증하려는 시도를 주로 경제적 증거에 입각하여 분석하는 추세를 보여 왔다. 하지만 담합의 존재를 입증하는데 있어서 경제분석의 역할에도 많은 이견이 날카롭게 표출되었다. 담합의 존재에 관한 경제적 증거를 분석하는 데에 있어 유일한 합리적 근거는 최신과점이론(Modern oligopoly theory)이다. 그런데 증인으로 나선 많은 경제학자들과 법원이 최신과점이론에 자신들의 분석을 뚜렷이 기초하지 않았기 때문에, 판례법의 현 상태가 불만족스럽다고 주장하는 것이 본 논문의 핵심적 내용이다. 셔먼법 제1조는 ''계약, 결합, 공모(contract, combination, or conspiracy)에 의해 초래되는 거래(즉 경쟁)의 불합리한 제한을 규제''하는데, 이러한 계약 결합, 공모의''용어들은 합의라는 하나의 개념으로 통합하여 이해''할 수 있다. 제 1조는 다수의 당사자가 ''단일한 목적, 공통된 의도와 의견의 일치, 혹은 의사의 합치(Meeting of minds)'', 즉 ''공통된 계획에 대한 의식적 참가(consious commitment to a common scheme)''를 합의한 모든 협약을 규제한다. 셔먼법 제 1조 위반을 입증하기 위해서는 일치된 행동이 합의 하에서 일어났음을 입증해야 한다. 미국 법원은 합의를 추론할 수 있는 증거력 있는 정황증거(admissible circumstantial evidence)의 원칙을 확립하였다. 독점가격에 가까운 수준의 과점가격 설정은 ''조정되었다(coordinated)''라고 칭해지는데, 이는 ''구두 합의''와 ''암묵적 합의''의 두 가지 형태로 나뉜다. 한편, 일회게임 과점 모형과 반복게임 모형은 과점이론의 핵심을 이룬다. 과점에 대한 Chamberlin의 견해는 본래 게임과 Stigler의 모형은 그와 같은 생각의 오류를 가르쳤다. 그러나 판례법은, Petroleum products antitrust litigation사건과 reserve supply사건에서 볼 수 있듯이 종종 그러한 교훈을 망각했다. 최신과정이론과 판례를 종합해 보면, 합의의 존재에 관해 경제학자가 이끌어내는 추론과 법원이 이끌어내는 추론을 포괄하는 다음의 네 가지 일반적 원칙이 도출된다. 1. 합의가 추론되기 위해서는 상호의존성을 넘는 무언가가 먼저 제시되어야 한다. 2. 합의의 존재는 일회게임 과점 모형에서의 비협조적 내쉬균형과 일치하는 행동으로부터는 추론될 수 없다. 3. 합의의 존재는, 비록 무한반복 과점게임에서의 비협조적 내쉬균형(혹은 Chamberlin-Fellner식의 과점)과 일치하더라도, 일회게임 과점 모형에서의 비협조적 내쉬균형과 일치하지 않는 행동으로부터 추론될 수 있다. 4. 증거는 구두합의의 존재를 뒷받침해야만 한다. 이러한 원칙에서 얻을 수 있는 가장 중요한 교훈은, 합의가 존재하지 않을 경우 과점상황으로부터는 독점가격이 예상될 수 없다는 사실을 법원이 인식하는 것만으로도 합의의 추론에서 범하기 쉬운 가장 큰 오류를 회피할 수 있다는 것이다.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.637-661
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• 2003

This paper analyzes the impact of import liberalization of petroleum product market in 1997 on the behavior of a domestic industry, regarded as a typical oligopoly. Based on the theory of implicit cartel, two regression equations were formulated and estimated for domestic production and refinery margin using monthly data for the period from Jan. 1994 to June 2003. Estimation results show that not only did domestic production rise sharply but also the refining cost fell substantially throughout 1996 before the actual liberalization of imports, Such a response is clearly consistent with the implicit cartel theory, which suggests that once the difficulty of maintaining a cartel in the future is recognized, the cartel immediately collapses and anticipation of import liberalization can cause immediately lowering market price as well as an immediate expansion of the supply by a domestic industry. However, the significant reduction of refinery cost accompanied by a large contraction in domestic output after the actual implementation of import liberalization can be explained by the collapse of implicit cartel caused by the anticipated liberalization of imports. Thus, import liberalization in the sense of allowing entry of foreign producers into domestic market has seemed to be an effective means to weaken market power and induce more competitive conduct of domestic firms.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.613-641
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• 2013

This paper uses the error correction model to analyse dynamic gasoline price adjustments of the four refiners. Unlike the existing studies, this model allows a refiner's asymmetric adjustment to changes in the other refiners' prices as well as in its own price and costs. With the estimation results, we can obtain the following findings. First, there are the asymmetric price adjustments to changes in exchange rate and international gasoline price, but showing opposing directions. Second, for most of the refiners, the prices respond immediately to the lagged deviation from the long run equilibrium price, but asymmetrically respond for a few refiners. Third, there are some refiners that adjust their price to the other refiners' price deviation from the long run equilibrium. For some refiners, there are competitive price adjustments to the others' price deviations. These findings imply that a refiner faces inelastic demand, intends to maintain implicitly a relative level of its own price to others, and tends to respond competitively to the others' price deviation from the equilibrium.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.127-148
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• 1990

A Milgrom-Roberts style signalling model of limit pricing is developed to analyze the possibility and the scope of limit pricing in general, noncooperative oligopolies. The model contains multiple incumbent firms facing a potential entrant and assumes an information asymmetry between incombents and the potential entrant about the market demand. There are two periods in the model. In period 1, n incumbent firms simultaneously and noncooperatively choose quantities. At the end of period 1, the potential entrant observes the market price and makes an entry decision. In period 2, depending on the entry decision of the entrant, n' or (n+1) firms choose quantities again before the game terminates. Since the choice of incumbent firms in period 1 depends on their information about demand, the market price in period 1 conveys information about the market demand. Thus, there is a systematic link between the market price and the profitability of entry. Using Bayes-Nash equilibrium as the solution concept, we find that there exist some demand conditions under which incumbent firms will limit price. In symmetric equilibria, incumbent firms each produce an output that is greater than the Cournot output and induce a price that is below the Cournot price. In doing so, each incumbent firm refrains from maximizing short-run profit and supplies a public good that is entry deterrence. The reason that entry is deterred by such a reduced price is that it conveys information about the demand of the industry that is unfavorable to the entrant. This establishes the possibility of limit pricing by noncooperative oligopolists in a setting that is fully rational, and also generalizes the result of Milgrom and Roberts to general oligopolies, confirming Bain's intuition. Limit pricing by incumbents explained above can be interpreted as a form of credible collusion in which each firm voluntarily deviates from myopic optimization in order to deter entry using their superior information. This type of implicit collusion differs from Folk-theorem type collusions in many ways and suggests that a collusion can be a credible one even in finite games as long as there is information asymmetry. Another important result is that as the number of incumbent firms approaches infinity, or as the industry approaches a competitive one, the probability that limit pricing occurs converges to zero and the probability of entry converges to that under complete information. This limit result confirms the intuition that as the number of agents sharing the same private information increases, the value of the private information decreases, and the probability that the information gets revealed increases. This limit result also supports the conventional belief that there is no entry problem in a competitive market. Considering the fact that limit pricing is generally believed to occur at an early stage of an industry and the fact that many industries in Korea are oligopolies in their infant stages, the theoretical results of this paper suggest that we should pay attention to the possibility of implicit collusion by incumbent firms aimed at deterring new entry using superior information. The long-term loss to the Korean economy from limit pricing can be very large if the industry in question is a part of the world market and the domestic potential entrant whose entry is deterred could .have developed into a competitor in the world market. In this case, the long-term loss to the Korean economy should include the lost opportunity in the world market in addition to the domestic long-run welfare loss.