ENTRY AND PREDATION - BRITISH SHIPPING CARTELS 1879-1929

I examine the outcomes of cases of entry by merchant shipping lines in to established markets around the turn of the century. These establish ed markets ave completely dominated by an incumbent cartel composed of several member shipping lines. The cartel makes the decision whether or not to begin a price war against the entrant; some entrants are for mally admitted to the cartel without any conflict. I use characteristi cs of the entrant to predict whether or not the entrant will encounter a price war conditional on entering. I find that weaker entrants are fought, where ''weaker'' means having fewer financial resources, less experience, smaller size, or poor trade conditions. The empirical resu lts provide most support for the long-purse theory of predation. Due t o the small number of observations available, 47, I discuss qualitativ e evidence (such as predatory in tent expressed in correspondence betw een cartel members) that supports the empirical results. The results a re also found to be robust to misclassification of the dependent varia ble, which is It particular concern when dealing with historical data.