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Tutorial 10a With Answers
Tutorial 10a With Answers
Tutorial 10 Week 10
1. In Australia collusion is illegal. There is also a ‘Immunity Policy’ that allows the first colluding party
that comes forward and provides evidence of the illegal activity to the authorities (the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission or ACCC) to avoid prosecution. The US and the EU have
similar policies. This question explores how this policy is intended to work.
Consider two detergent manufacturers Unilever and Colgate. Assume that both companies are
colluding with one another to keep prices and profits high. Also assume that the companies have
reason to believe that the ACCC is considering mounting a case alleging that they were engaged in
price fixing (collusion).
The possible actions for Unilever and Colgate are to either Report the collusive activity or to Not
Report.
The payoffs are as follows. If both companies choose to report they each get a fine of $3M (or a payoff
of ‐$3M). If both companies choose not to report they each get a payoff of ‐$2M. If one company
reports and the other plays Not Report then: the company that chose to Report avoids prosecution
and gets a payoff of $0.5; the company that did Not Report gets a payoff of ‐$5M.
Draw the normal form of the game and determine the Nash equilibrium. What is the thinking
underlying the Immunity Policy.
(This question is based on a recent ACCC case against Unilever, Colgate, Cussons and Woolworths. See
https://www.accc.gov.au/media‐release/colgate‐ordered‐to‐pay‐18‐million‐penalty‐in‐laundry‐
detergent‐cartel‐proceedings )
The idea of the policy is to create a dominant strategy for each player, and a Nash equilibrium of
(Report, Report) so that each player reports.
2 Consider the following game involving Sony and Nintendo. Each has to decide on a new platform for
its new generation of games. In the normal‐form game below, the first payoff is for Sony and the
second is for Nintendo. What is Sony’s preferred outcome? What is Nintendo’s preferred outcome?
What are the Nash equilibrium or equilibria of the game? Explain your answer.
Nintendo
Platform 1 Platform 2
Platform 1 (20, 20) (5, 7)
Sony
Old New
What are the Nash equilibria? Relate you answer to firms being trapped in a ‘bad’ outcome.
(Pure strategy) NE – (Old, Old) and (New, New)
9. Show that all Dominant Strategy equilibria are also Nash equilibria, but not all Nash equilibria
are Dominant Strategy equilibria. Illustrate your answer using examples.