The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK has recently investigated major car manufacturers for allegedly colluding to limit the speed at which clean emissions technology was rolled out. Conversely, governments across Europe and North America have pressured automotive firms to cooperate in standardising charging technologies and plug designs for electric vehicles (EVs).
Evaluate the view that governments should never intervene to influence how oligopolists collude or cooperate on issues such as pricing, technical standards, product development, or market sharing.
378 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Economics 1.8 The market mechanism, market failure and government intervention in markets, covering 1.8.1 How markets and prices allocate resources, 1.8.2 The meaning of market failure, 1.8.3 Public goods, private goods and quasi-public goods, 1.8.4 Positive and negative externalities in consumption and production, 1.8.5 Merit and demerit goods, 1.8.6 Market imperfections, 1.8.7 Competition policy (A-level only), 1.8.8 Public ownership, privatisation, regulation and deregulation of markets (A-level only), 1.8.9 Government intervention in markets, and 1.8.10 Government failure. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.