I study the ability of two competing firms to set collusive prices in markets where consumers have switching costs. In consumer markets (with a small number of consumers), I find an antifolk result in which collusion, in the presence of switching costs, does not arise with patient firms. Patient firms compete aggressively and consumers expect a large utility. A collusive equilibrium is unstable because a deviating firm incorporates the future consumer utility in its deviating price. Also, consumers have a strategic impact so, with the prospects of large utility, they decide to switch to destabilize the firms' collusive agreement. These results do not eventuate in markets with a large number of consumers. In mass markets (a continuum of consumers), a single consumer lacks a strategic impact to destabilize a collusive agreement and a deviating firm cannot appropriate the consumer utility when deviating from collusion. Collusion, then, becomes straightforward to achieve. We show that for any number of consumers, switching costs make collusion easy to sustain.

中文翻译：

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具有转换成本的共谋均衡：消费者集中度的影响

我研究了两家竞争公司在消费者转换成本的市场中设定合谋价格的能力。在消费者市场（有少量消费者）中，我发现了一种反民间的结果，即在存在转换成本的情况下，患者公司不会发生合谋。耐心公司竞争激烈，消费者期望其效用很大。共谋均衡不稳定，因为偏离的公司将未来的消费者效用纳入其偏离的价格中。而且，消费者具有战略影响，因此，鉴于大型公用事业的前景，他们决定转而破坏企业的串通协议。在拥有大量消费者的市场中，这些结果并没有最终实现。在大众市场（连续的消费者）中，单个消费者缺乏破坏合谋协议的战略影响，而偏离公司则在偏离合谋时无法利用消费者的效用。因此，勾结变得很容易实现。我们表明，对于任何数量的消费者，转换成本都使串通容易维持。