On July 4, 2016, Dr. Tobias Wenzel (University of Bath) will give a talk about "Hidden prices" in the context of the SFB 901.
Abstract:
We explore the incentives of firms to shroud prices in a model where consumers can be fooled by firms partitioning prices into an observable and a potentially unobservable price component. In the static game hidden prices can arise in equilibrium only if the market is sufficiently concentrated and the shrouded price component is sufficiently high. In the dynamic game we find strong pro-collusive effects of hidden prices in that firms can more easily collude than in standard Bertrand markets. Such collusive strategies can also be stable in markets with many competitors, but are moderated if consumer learning is important.