This paper focuses on the genesis, taxonomy and timeline of U.S. criminal antitrust investigations, and uses time-series data on enforcement to examine the interrelationships between the various criminal enforcement variables as well as the linkages between criminal and civil enforcement. The key findings are: (1) there appears to be considerable dynamic interplay between the criminal variables. For example, an increase in grand jury investigations or criminal cases initiated or the number of individuals or firms convicted generates increases in most of these (endogenous) variables in future periods. A broad conclusion that can be drawn is that information unearthed during a given criminal investigation and prosecution often reveals information about other conspiracies leading to future investigations and prosecutions; (2) an increase in civil enforcement leads to future increases in the criminal cases and firms and individuals convicted. This suggests that information gleaned during civil investigations, such as mergers or monopolization cases, may reveal information about collusive behavior in markets leading to criminal investigations and prosecutions; and (3) criminal enforcement follows a counter-cyclical pattern with the number of criminal cases prosecuted increasing following an economic downturn. We relate this to the literature which points to cartel instability during economic downturns. Overall, our results point to complementarities in the investigative process within different facets of criminal investigations as well as between criminal and civil investigations.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
5499.
Find related papers by JEL classification: L00 - Industrial Organization - - General - - - General L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General B00 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General - - - General K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law M20 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Economics - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: