Interfirm Bundled Discounts as a Collusive Device
研究同质产品价格竞争的企业如何通过捆绑折扣实现超额利润，将消费者分组以缓解竞争并达成合谋结果，但消费者因有效价格上升而受损。
This paper investigates whether and how firms competing in price with homogeneous goods (i.e., B ertrand competitors) can achieve supernormal profits using interfirm bundled discounts. By committing to offering price discounts conditional on the purchase of a specific brand of other differentiated good, the homogeneous good suppliers can separate consumers into distinct groups. Such brand‐specific discounts help the firms relax competition and attain a collusive outcome. Consumers become worse off due to higher effective prices. Our result shows that in oligopolies it is feasible to leverage other's market power without excluding rivals.