IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v27y2009i2p145-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Group size effects on cartel formation and the enforcement power of leniency programs

Author

Listed:
  • Hamaguchi, Yasuyo
  • Kawagoe, Toshiji
  • Shibata, Aiko

Abstract

Antitrust authorities in many countries have been trying to establish appropriate competition policies based on economic analysis. Recently an anti-cartel policy called a "leniency program" has been introduced in many countries as an effective policy to dissolve cartels. In this paper, we studied several kinds of leniency programs through laboratory experiments. We experimentally controlled for three factors: 1) cartel size: the number of cartel members in a group, small (two-person) or large (seven-person), 2) fine schedule: the number of firms that are given leniency, and 3) degree of leniency: a partially reduced fine, a fully reduced fine, or a reward is given to self-reporting firms. The experimental results showed that (1) an increase in the number of cartel members in a group increased the number of cartels dissolved, (2) changing the fine schedule had no significant effect both in the two-person group size and in the seven-person group size, and (3) positive enforcement such as giving a reward for a self-reporting firm in a courageous leniency program has great impact on dissolving cartel activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamaguchi, Yasuyo & Kawagoe, Toshiji & Shibata, Aiko, 2009. "Group size effects on cartel formation and the enforcement power of leniency programs," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 145-165, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:27:y:2009:i:2:p:145-165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-7187(08)00069-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919, December.
    2. Huck, Steffen & Normann, Hans-Theo & Oechssler, Jorg, 2004. "Two are few and four are many: number effects in experimental oligopolies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 435-446, April.
    3. Jose Apesteguia & Martin Dufwenberg & Reinhard Selten, 2007. "Blowing the Whistle," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 31(1), pages 143-166, April.
    4. Motta, Massimo & Polo, Michele, 2003. "Leniency programs and cartel prosecution," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 347-379, March.
    5. Karine Brisset & Lionel Thomas, 2004. "Leniency Program: A New Tool in Competition Policy to Deter Cartel Activity in Procurement Auctions," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 5-19, January.
    6. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    7. Jeroen Hinloopen & Adriaan R. Soetevent, 2008. "Laboratory evidence on the effectiveness of corporate leniency programs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 607-616, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Crede, Carsten J., 2020. "Post-cartel tacit collusion: Determinants, consequences, and prevention," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Bodnar, Olivia & Fremerey, Melinda & Normann, Hans-Theo & Schad, Jannika Leonie, 2021. "The effects of private damage claims on cartel activity: Experimental evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 315, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), revised 2021.
    3. Nick Feltovich & Yasuyo Hamaguchi, 2018. "The Effect of Whistle‐Blowing Incentives on Collusion: An Experimental Study of Leniency Programs," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(4), pages 1024-1049, April.
    4. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    5. Yasuyo Hamaguchi & Toshiji Kawagoe, 2005. "An Experimental Study of Leniency Programs," Discussion papers 05003, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Jeong Yeol Kim & Charles N. Noussair, 2023. "Leniency Policies and Cartel Success: An Experiment," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 63(2), pages 187-210, September.
    7. Kyle Hampton & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2012. "Demand shocks, capacity coordination, and industry performance: lessons from an economic laboratory," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 139-166, March.
    8. Zhijun Chen & Patrick Rey, 2013. "On the Design of Leniency Programs," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 917-957.
    9. Maximilian Andres & Lisa Bruttel & Jana Friedrichsen, 2019. "The Effect of a Leniency Rule on Cartel Formation and Stability: Experiments with Open Communication," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1835, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Maria Bigoni & Sven-Olof Fridolfsson & Chloé Le Coq & Giancarlo Spagnolo, 2015. "Trust, Leniency, and Deterrence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 663-689.
    11. Chen, Zhiqi & Ghosh, Subhadip & Ross, Thomas W., 2015. "Denying leniency to cartel instigators: Costs and benefits," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 19-29.
    12. Houba Harold & Motchenkova Evgenia & Wen Quan, 2015. "The Effects of Leniency on Cartel Pricing," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 351-389, July.
    13. Joan-Ramon Borrell & Carmen García & Juan Luis Jiménez & José Manuel Ordóñez-de-Haro, 2022. ""Cartel destabilization effect of leniency programs"," IREA Working Papers 202213, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Sep 2022.
    14. Perrotta Berlin, Maria & Spagnolo, Giancarlo & Qin, Bei, 2015. "Leniency, Asymmetric Punishment and Corruption: Evidence from China," SITE Working Paper Series 34, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, revised 25 May 2017.
    15. Jeroen Hinloopen & Sander Onderstal & Adriaan Soetevent, 2023. "Corporate Leniency Programs for Antitrust: Past, Present, and Future," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 63(2), pages 111-122, September.
    16. Peter T. Dijkstra & Marco A. Haan & Lambert Schoonbeek, 2021. "Leniency Programs and the Design of Antitrust: Experimental Evidence with Free-Form Communication," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 59(1), pages 13-36, August.
    17. Clemens, Georg & Rau, Holger A., 2014. "Do leniency policies facilitate collusion? Experimental evidence," DICE Discussion Papers 130, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    18. Andres, Maximilian & Bruttel, Lisa & Friedrichsen, Jana, 2021. "The leniency rule revisited: Experiments on cartel formation with open communication," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    19. Gomez-Martinez, Francisco & Onderstal, Sander & Sonnemans, Joep, 2016. "Firm-specific information and explicit collusion in experimental oligopolies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 132-141.
    20. Armstrong, Mark & Huck, Steffen, 2010. "Behavioral economics as applied to firms: a primer," MPRA Paper 20356, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:27:y:2009:i:2:p:145-165. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505551 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.