Cartels as Efficient Productive Structures

Review of Austrian Economics

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 29-42

  Salin, Pascal ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÉ PARIS DAUPHINE   (France)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0004380261     PISSN: 08893047     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF01103328     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. Particularly in Man, Economy, and State, 3rd ed, (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1993), In the present paper we rely mainly on this book, from which we extracted all quotations for which pages are given without any further indication.
2. The definition of a market is arbitrary, since it implies the possibility to differentiate perfectly specific goods. This would be possible without any ambiguity only if goods were perfectly not substitutable one to the other. As far as some substitutability exists -which is always the case - the definition of a good and of a market is arbitrary.
3. Anyhow, those who support such views do not usually consider the possibility of competition from producers located in other nations and are ready to support protectionist measures.
4. We have developed this view in a short book, La concurrence, in the Que sais-je? collection (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995).
5. Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, p. 565.
6. Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, Ibid.,p. 569.
7. Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, Ibid.,p. 584.
8. Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, Ibid., p. 570.
9. Moreover, in such a case, the cartel is only a transitory market structure to cope with the unexpected consequences of non-cooperative behaviors. Now, in principle, the market is a coordination process which makes cooperation unnecessary.
10. This term seems to have been used first by the economists of Bell Co. It is used, for instance, in W. Baumol, J. Panzar, J. C. Willig, Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1982).
11. As Murray Rothbard rightly wrote, "The critical problem is not the size of the plant, but the size of the firm" (Man, Economy, and State, p. 577) and "Economics can make few valid statements about the optimal size of a firm except that the free market will come as close as possible to rendering maximum service to consumers, whether we are considering the size of a firm or any other aspect of production"
12. (Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State Ibid., p. 578).
13. K. T. Lancaster, "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy (April 1966);
14. reprinted in Modern Consumer Theory (Brookfield, Vt. and Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar, 1991).
15. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, p. 572; emphasis in the original.
16. In many cases, a cartel can be considered as simply a tentative step in the direction of permanent merger," Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, ibid., p. 573.
17. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, Ibid., p. 579.
18. Ronald H. Coaae, "The Nature of the Firm," Economica (1932).
19. Franchising in retail trade is a well-known example of such strategies.