When Are Cartels Stable Contracts?
研究为何一些行业卡特尔能存活数十年而其他很快瓦解，发现长期卡特尔往往出口给小买家、覆盖广泛行业、在价格稳定和需求增长时期运营，并通过共同销售代理集中控制，但价格固定型卡特尔特别不稳定。
Why do some industry cartels survive for decades, while others are quickly undermined by price wars and entry? Variation in cartels' longevity can be explained by differences in their costs of self-enforcement and service value to members. Analyzing legal cartel contracts formed under the Webb-Pomerene Export Trade Act, I find that longer-lived cartels tended to export to small buyers, to have wide industry coverage, to operate in periods of stable prices and growing demand, and to sell under side agreements with foreign competitors. Contracts in which the cartel centralized its control through a common sales agency tended to be more stable. However, cartels usually grew less stable with age and when there was a recent and long history of cartelization in the industry. Finally, cartels whose primary rationale was to fix price tended to be particularly unstable, because these contracts invited fringe competition and entry.