Tacit Collusion in the Frequently Repeated Multi-Unit Uniform Price Auction for Wholesale Electricity in England and Wales

Tacit collusion between National Power and PowerGen, the dominant generators in England and Wales for most of the 1990s, was widely speculated but was not definitively proven. In the event of a legal determination, the best available evidence is a test of suspicious patterns of bidding behavior. The methodology has two stages: the first is to show that the suspects behave differently from the rest, which are assumed competitive; the second stage is to ask whether or not strategies of suspects affect one another. Results: the impact of suspects on the aggregate bid function can not be explained away by costs and common market events, and a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) on strategies of the suspects reveals bid inter-dependence and co-ordination on demand trends. A quarter of the dynamic indicators support an inference of tacit collusion. The existence of multiple equilibria in supergames, however, prevents a conclusive statement.     

中日双边互动的战略性思考

中国的和谐世界理念与日本外交战略的互动,表现为两国战略分歧与战略对话并存:中国坚持走和平发展道路与日本"普通国家论"阐释的大国化战略路径相异,导致两国业已存续的冲突与纷争时有显现、结构性矛盾日益突出,因而构筑基于共同战略利益的互惠关系成为发展双边关系的战略选择。寻求中日双边良性互动,要将两国关系置于国际体系的坐标中进行战略定位,在考量构建中日战略互惠关系相关因素的基础上,突破既往双边关系的局限性,理性调控中日战略互惠关系的互动及走向。