By contrast, when sellers react quickest, they are quick to copy others offering poor value for money. This reduces the number of sellers offering good value for money in a vicious cycle that drives prices as high as possible. This is the emergence of a cartel and it happens in these guys’ model without any collusion between sellers. Instead, it is an emergent property of the market place that happens when the sellers outperform buyers in the way they react to market conditions.
— Cartels Are an Emergent Phenomenon, Say Complexity Theorists
