E-Locus - Institutional Repository of the University of Crete

Home Collections School/Department School of Social Sciences Department of Economics Doctoral theses

Doctoral theses

Current Record: 13 of 31

[Add to Basket]

Identifier

000399660

http://

Title

Essays on the mode of competition, quality improvement, and collusion, in unionized oligopolies

Alternative Title

Δοκίμια για τη μορφή του ανταγωνισμού, την βελτίωση της ποιότητας και την συμπαιγνία σε συνδικαλισμένα ολιγοπώλια

Author

Βαρβατάκη, Μαρία Μ.

Thesis advisor

Μηνάς Βλάσσης

Abstract

The Doctoral Thesis entitled “Essays on the Mode of Competition, Quality Improvement, and Collusion”, focuses on the alternative firms’ and unions’ strategies, such as cartel formation, unions’ structure, mode of market competition and R&D investments on quality improvement of products. In particular, it investigates their impact on the competitive position of an oligopolistic firm in the market, the market outcomes and social welfare. The above scientific fields are fundamental concerns of Industrial Organization, as they convey theoretical as well as empirical importance. The thesis consists of four theoretical essays on unionized oligopolistic markets with differentiated products. The first chapter, “Welfare Improving Cartel Formation in a Union-Oligopoly Static Framework”, studies the role of unions regarding the possibility and the effects of endogenous cartel formation. It also analyzes how the cartel formation may be welfare improving in a union-oligopoly static framework. The second chapter, “On the mode of Competition as a Collusive Perspective in Unionized Oligopoly”, endogenizes the mode of product market competition by exploring its strategic role on firms’ incentives for collusion. It indicates that the cartel formation is an unavoidable equilibrium in the product market. The last two chapters, “Union-Oligopoly Bargaining and Vertical Differentiation: Do Unions Affect Quality?” investigate the alternative unions’ and market’s structures in oligopolies with R&D investments on static and dynamic analysis context. Among others, it concludes that all market participant surpluses are higher (and consequently so is Social Welfare), when the R&D – quality improvement is a public good, even if this leads to indirect taxation on market products. Regarding the technical analysis of the thesis’ issues, Game Theory proves more superior among the other economic modeling techniques, as it focuses on the strategic interdependence among the economic agents. Consequently, for each issue a non-cooperative multi-stage game setup (single/one-shot or infinitively repeated) is proposed, where economic agents select their strategies from within a given agenda. Each of the proposed games has been solved using backwards induction in order to obtain the perfect sub-game Nash equilibrium.

Language

Greek

Subject

Cartel

Collusion

Mode of competition

Oligopoly

R&D investments

Repeated games

Unions

Επαναλαμβανόμενα παίγνια

Επενδύσεις σε έρευνα και ανάπτυξη