@techreport{64a44cc6fff142b3b07664ac02cea73d,
title = "Tracing the Base: A Topographic Test for Collusive Basing-Point Pricing",
abstract = "Basing-point pricing is known to have been abused by geographically dispersed firms in order to eliminate competition on transportation costs. This paper develops a topographic test for collusive basing-point pricing. The method uses transaction data (prices, quantities) and customer project site locations to recover the basing-point(s) from which delivered prices were calculated. These bases are compared to the locations of the production mills in a test that discriminates between competitive and collusive basing-point pricing. We define a measure for the likelihood of collusion that can be used to screen industries that traditionally apply delivered pricing for the presence of cartels. We operationalize this screen with a software. The test is hard to beat for cartels using this otherwise elusive form of price-fixing. When a cartel was found to have abused the basing-point system, our method can be used to estimate antitrust damages.",
author = "Iwan Bos and Schinkel, {Maarten Pieter}",
year = "2009",
language = "English",
series = "Discussion paper TI",
publisher = "Tinbergen Instituut",
number = "09-007/1",
type = "WorkingPaper",
institution = "Tinbergen Instituut",
}