Endogenous information disclosure in experimental oligopolies

With this research we examine whether observing firm-specific production levels leads to a less competitive market outcome. We consider an endogenous information setting where firms can freely decide whether they want to share information about their past production levels. By voluntarily sharing information, firms can show their willingness to cooperate. We conduct a laboratory experiment where firms decide only about their production levels first, and the information they receive is exogenous (either no information, or aggregate / disaggregated information about others' production, in varying order). Later, firms can also decide whether to share their past production levels with others. We vary the kind of information firms receive: they receive the shared information either in aggregate or in disaggregated form. Our results show no difference in average total outputs across data aggregation and information settings. However, we observe more collusion when individual information was shared voluntarily. Our results show that subjects use voluntary sharing to show their intentions to cooperate. If they share information, they produce significantly less than if they do not share information.