OPEC Behaviour Under Falling Prices: Implications For Cartel Stability

Abstract

The surprising extended decline in real oil prices during the 1980s has raised the question of OPEC’s continued viability as a price-setting cartel. In response, Griffin’s (1985) tests of alternative hypotheses about OPEC behaviour performed over a period of generally rising prices (1971:1-1983:III) are repeated for the more recent period of falling prices (1983:IV-1988:IV), yielding the same general conclusions: most OPEC members continue to behave in a “partial market sharing” way, while most non-OPEC oil producers do not. Thus the evidence suggests that recent oil price reductions are more the result of deliberate output adjustments by the cartel than the unintentional outcome of a breakdown in cartel discipline on the way to eventual collapse.