THE 1958 AUTOMOBILE INFORMAITON DISCLOSURE ACT: A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF REGULATION
重新分析了1958年汽车信息披露法案对美国三大汽车制造商定价行为的影响，指出此前研究认为该法案促进合谋的结论存在缺陷，新证据不支持该结论。
This paper focuses on the 1958 Automobile Information Disclosure Act (AIDA) which required stricker prices and equipment lists to be posted on new cars. The analysis of a previous study (by Boyle and Hogarty; BH) is extended to incorporate additional data and alternative econometric techniques. This study analyzed pricing behavior among the top three United States automobile producers over the period 1957-71. The BH results suggest that the three largest manufacturers collude in terms of quality adjusted prices and that such collusion became successful as a result of AIDA. The BH study recommended that AIDA should be repealed or be supplemented with action designed to reduce the firms' ability to collude. This paper calls attention to some deficiencies of the characteristic pricing model as an instrument for testing for the presence of collusion and presents new evidence that does not support the BH conclusion.