Passive forward ownership and upstream collusion

Abstract

We examine the effects of passive forward ownership on the sustainability of upstream collusion. We consider a homogeneous Cournot duopoly with competing vertical chains. In one chain, the upstream firm has non-controlling partial ownership over its downstream exclusive client. We find that passive forward ownership hinders upstream collusion; the higher is the degree of ownership, the more difficult it is for upstream collusion to be sustained. The driving force behind our result is that a higher degree of passive forward ownership decreases collusive profits of the unintegrated upstream firm.