Testing the Hypothesis of Collusive Behavior Among Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Members

This paper presents a test to discriminate among behaviors of producers of exhaustible resources. The behavior of a competitive producer of an exhaustible resource should follow an Euler equation. The existence of futures markets allows us to sidestep the difficult issues related to estimating future prices and demand. This theoretical framework is used to test the hypothesis of collusive Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) behavior between 1983 and 1991.