Multi-Market Contact in International Trade; Evidence from U.S. Battery Exporters
May 2025
Working Paper Number:
CES-25-32
Abstract
When competitors compete in more than one market they are said to have multi-market contact (MMC). Firms with MMC are more likely collude to avoid cross-market retaliation. This paper investigates the impact of MMC among U.S. battery exporters on the prices they set in foreign markets using confidential export transaction data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ability of firms to exploit MMC for collusive gain in international markets can be both detrimental to import-dependent consumers and harder for anti-trust authorities to detect. Motivated by litigation finding evidence of collusive behavior by multi-national battery manufacturers, MMC has an upward effect on export prices set by U.S. battery exporters. These results are robust across different panel regression specifications using different measures of MMC.
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:
market,
econometric,
sale,
import,
export,
manufacturer,
merger,
subsidiary,
monopolistic,
exporting,
exporter,
oligopolistic,
oligopoly,
multinational,
competitiveness,
retailer,
competitor,
exported,
export market
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Foreign Direct Investment,
Longitudinal Business Database,
Economic Census,
North American Industry Classification System,
European Union,
European Commission,
Longitudinal Firm Trade Transactions Database
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