4 ms·

Been saying this for a while, cottage industries for "price information" is acting an an insulator from being caught as colluding. Gas, rent, poultry, dairy an

• ansmithz42 3y ago
  Remember: Bigger is Better Economies of Scale They both benefit the few and sacrifice the many but are sold as ways to "reduce" costs and hence prices for the masses.
• twoodfin 3y ago
  Collusion in general doesn’t work if there’s not a mechanism to punish defection—or government regulation to prevent it! I don’t see what that mechanism or regulation would be for, say, pork prices. It seems far more likely that accurately collated pricing information is simply driving efficiency for each individual supplier.
  • Kinrany 3y ago
    If all your competitors match your prices with no delay, lowering prices gives you no competitive advantage but makes your margins worse.
  • Jensson 3y ago
    That is just naive game theory. Humans can actually cooperate if cooperating makes everyone better off even if game theory says they shouldn't cooperate, has been tested and shown to be true over and over. So the question is if the companies collectively benefits from colluding? If yes then they probably will do so, at least when the number of competitors are small and inhouse alternatives are expensive.