Abstract
The purpose of this note is to update James M. Griffin's study, “OPEC Behavior: A Test of Alternative Hypotheses” in The American Economic Review, Vol. 75, No. 5, 1985. In an attempt to empirically explain OPEC behavior, Griffin estimated four basic models (cartel, competitive, target revenue, and property rights) using quarterly data for the period 1971 to 1983. Griffin concluded that the partial market-sharing cartel model dominated all the other models in the ability to explain production behavior. Further attempts to improve model performance by the addition of lagged oil reserves to the competitive and cartel models failed to alter his basic conclusion. The objective of this note is to follow Griffin's methodology in empirically testing the competitive and cartel models, along with their respective lagged oil reserve counterparts, using quarterly data for the period 1983 to 1989 and to compare the results.1
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