TRADE ASSOCIATIONS: WHY NOT CARTELS?
探讨为何大型行业协会能有效游说却难以形成卡特尔，认为关键在于供给弹性：只有当增产成本足够高时，集团纪律才能维持卡特尔，否则背叛动机过强。
Abstract The relevance of special interests lobbying in modern democracies can hardly be questioned. But if large trade associations can overcome the free riding problem and form effective lobbies, why do they not also threaten market competition by forming equally effective cartels? We argue that the key to understanding the difference lies in supply elasticity. The group discipline, which works in the case of lobbying, can be effective in sustaining a cartel only if increasing output is sufficiently costly—otherwise the incentive to deviate is too great. The theory helps organizing a number of stylized facts within a common framework.