When firms engage in price discrimination under competition, they can face a trade-off when choosing to collude. In order to maintain price discrimination, upper-level executives may have to involve those lower-level employees with the demand information needed to tailor prices to markets and...

Hub-and-spoke collusion is when firms in a market coordinate their conduct by communicating through an upstream supplier or downstream customer. This study examines nine hub-and-spoke cartels towards understanding how they operate: What is the collusive scheme? How do firms achieve mutual...

After arguing that collusion by software programs which choose pricing rules without any human intervention is not in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act, the paper offers a path towards making collusion by autonomous agents unlawful

Leniency programs have become widespread and are generally quite active as reflected in the number of applications. What is not well-understood is how they affect the number of cartels. This paper develops and explores a theoretical framework to help understand when leniency programs are likely...

Towards understanding what makes a cartel successful, this chapter examines a variety of collusive practices with an eye to how they vary in their efficacy in establishing and sustaining supracompetitive prices and in the legal risk they create for firms. Four conditions for cartel success are...

A third party developer designs and sells a pricing algorithm that enhances a firm's ability to tailor prices to a source of demand variation, whether high-frequency demand shocks or market segmentation. The equilibrium pricing algorithm is characterized that maximizes the third party's profit...

The private exchange of prices by competitors has long been a source of anticompetitive concern. Based on claims of possible procompetitive effects, the Supreme Court decided that antitrust challenges to these exchanges should be evaluated under the rule of reason. In reviewing the jurisprudence...

There are well-documented episodes for which prices remained at supracompetitive levels even after a cartel had been shut down by the competition authority. As long as market conditions remain reasonably stable, it is quite possible that collusive prices will still be incentive compatible so the...

This paper identifies three classes of public announcements which facilitate coordination among competitors to restrict competition. Nine episodes of collusion are investigated to understand how this method of communication operates and is effective. An assessment of the conduct of competition...

Competitors privately sharing price intentions is universally prohibited under antitrust/competition law. In contrast, there is no common well-accepted treatment of competitors privately sharing prices. This paper shows that firms sharing prices leads to higher prices. Based on this theory of...