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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 8: Poster

SOE 8.15: Poster

Montag, 16. März 2015, 18:00–20:00, Poster E

Effects of price transparency in a self organized cartel-formation model — •Philipp C. Böttcher, Tiago P. Peixoto, and Stefan Bornholdt — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Bremen, Hochschulring 18, D-28359 Bremen

Fuel prices vary strongly over short time periods, often to the disadvantage of customers. It is commonly hypothesized that this might be a consequence of collusion among gas companies. A recent measure to counteract this in Germany is to force gas stations to list their prices, so that buyers can more easily choose the best option, in the spirit of an improved competition.

However, it has been shown recently that explicit collusion is not a necessary ingredient of cartel-like behavior. In a simple market model [T. Peixoto and S. Bornholdt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 218702 (2012)], where buyers freely choose the seller, and the sellers adapt their prices without colluding, a cartel-like dynamics arises spontaneously. The parameter which controls the onset of the cartel-like dynamics is the relative speed with which the sellers update their strategies compared to the buyers.

We modify the original market model by placing the buyers and sellers in a two-dimensional lattice, and we include a portion of buyers which have access to a global list of prices. By varying this fraction, we can probe the effect of this particular measure in diminishing the typical prices and their fluctuations. We find that price transparency does indeed produce the intended effect in some situations while it can even intensify cartel-like behavior in others.