Competition authorities increasingly rely on economic screening tools to identify markets where firms deviate from competitive norms. Traditional screening methods assume that collusion occurs through secret agreements. However, recent research highlights that firms can use public announcements...

Using a sample of listed Chinese firms from 2007 to 2020, we investigate the governance implications of cross-ownership in corporate bond markets. We find that cross-ownership significantly reduces bond issuance spreads, suggesting that synergistic governance effects outweigh potential collusion...

Competition authorities impose substantial penalties on firms engaging in illegal pricefixing. We examine how basing cartel fines on either revenue, profit, or price overcharge influences cartel and market prices, as well as cartel incidence and stability. In an infinitely repeated Bertrand...

It is well-known that failing to achieve key organizational goals may pressure managers to commit fraud, but can it be a facilitating factor in cartel formation as well? The purpose of this study is to understand if firms known to have been in a cartel were under financial stress in the period...

Competition authorities increasingly rely on economic screening tools to identify markets where firms deviate from competitive norms. Traditional screening methods assume that collusion occurs through secret agreements. However, recent research highlights that firms can use public announcements...

This paper explores algorithmic collusion from both legal and economic perspectives, underscoring the increasing influence of algorithms in firms’ market decisions and their potential to facilitate anti-competitive behaviour. By employing bandit algorithms as a model—typically used in...

This paper investigates partial cartels, which laboratory studies have neglected despite their empirical prevalence. We conduct two laboratory experiments to understand how they function compared to all-inclusive cartels and respond to antitrust policies. First, we compare partial cartel...

We develop a method for detecting cartels in multistage auctions. Our approach allows a firm to be collusive when facing members of its cartel yet competitive when facing others. Intuitively, as initial bids are shaded, close initial bids not only imply similar costs but also provide an...

Competition authorities increasingly rely on economic screening tools to identify markets where firms deviate from competitive norms. Traditional screening methods assume that collusion occurs through secret agreements. However, recent research highlights that firms can use public announcements...

This is a review of the 2023 IASOC Prize Winner Trying to Make It: The Enterprises, Gangs, and People of the American Drug Trade. By R.V. Gundur. Gundur offers a masterful account of the inner workings of the illicit drugs trade from the Mexico-US Border into the USA. His ethnography examines...

Corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDD) is needed in order to achieve a transition towards a green economy and deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, the Commission proposed the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) in 2019. In March 2024, the Council...

Following the judgment of the Court of Justice and especially the Opinion of the Advocate General in the CDC Hydrogen Peroxide case, arbitration agreements on disputes concerning damages for infringements of the competition rules of the TFEU have been interpreted as being contrary to the...

This article explores the history of international softwood timber trade from the late 19 th century until the 1970s, focusing on governance and the interplay between public and private sectors. By examining the roles of business associations and international networks, it highlights how these...

Antitrust laws prohibit private firms to coordinate their market behavior, yet many types of interfirm cooperation are legal. Using laboratory experiments, we study spillovers from legal cooperation in one market to non-competitive prices in a different market. Our theoretical framework predicts...

Collusive agreements in the form of cartels among firms are complex structures. The involved firms need to agree on prices and sales quotas that are legally not enforceable. Market characteristics that foster cartels’ failure or success are widely examined. However, the interplay between the...

The paper uses a machine learning technique to build up a screen for collusive behavior. Such tools can be applied by competition authorities but also by companies to screen the behavior of their suppliers. The method is applied to the German retail gasoline market to detect anomalous behavior...

A bonus on the fine in response to the defendant running a corporate compliance program is superfluous because working leniency programs provide all the incentives necessary to implement efficient compliance. Others opposed to such a bonus argue that unreduced fines are sufficient to incentivize...

While the economic harm of cartels is caused by their price-increasing effect, sanctioning by courts rather targets at the underlying process of firms reaching a price-fixing agreement. This paper provides experimental evidence on the question whether such sanctioning meets the economic target,...

The theory of convenience addresses white-collar and corporate crime. The theory is applied in this article to a case study of Norwegian publishing houses having to pay infringement fees because of competition act violation. Cartel members agreed and coordinated a boycott of a distribution...

In this paper, we aim to investigate the collusive stability in the presence of network externalities among firms with relative performance in the firm's objective functions. We demonstrate that collusive stability is increasing (decreasing) in the degree of relative performance, product...

Under collusion, firms deviate from current profit maximization in anticipation of future rewards. As current profit maximization places little restrictions on firms’ pricing behaviour, collusive conduct is hard to infer. We show that bids from certain firms in the Colombian wholesale...