IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crs/wpaper/99-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collusion et politique de la concurrence en information asymétrique

Author

Listed:
  • Thierry Penard

    (Crest)

  • Saïd Souam

    (Crest)

Abstract

This article attempts to determine the optimal antitrust policy against price-fixing when competition authorities imperfectly observe firms' behaviour. By investigating or auditing on markets, authorities can detect collusion. We show that the strenght of investigations depends on the characteristics of the market, the cost of investigation, the severity of punishment and the degree of stability of the collusion. Moreover, it is shown that authorities always tolerate some degree of collusion as long as investigation is costly. The results of our paper allow us to establish some guidelines for antitrust policy.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Thierry Penard & Saïd Souam, 1999. "Collusion et politique de la concurrence en information asymétrique," Working Papers 99-26, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    • Handle: RePEc:crs:wpaper:99-26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://crest.science/RePEc/wpstorage/1999-26.pdf
    File Function: Crest working paper version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Polinsky, A Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1992. "Enforcement Costs and the Optimal Magnitude and Probability of Fines," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 133-148, April.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    4. Besanko, David & Spulber, Daniel F, 1989. "Delegated Law Enforcement and Noncooperative Behavior," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 25-52, Spring.
    5. Marie-Cécile Fagart & Pierre Picard, 1999. "Optimal Insurance Under Random Auditing," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 24(1), pages 29-54, June.
    6. Dilip Mookherjee & Ivan Png, 1989. "Optimal Auditing, Insurance, and Redistribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 399-415.
    7. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1992. "Cost Padding, Auditing and Collusion," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 25-26, pages 205-226.
    8. Fahad Khalil, 1997. "Auditing Without Commitment," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(4), pages 629-640, Winter.
    9. repec:adr:anecst:y:1992:i:25-26:p:10 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1994. "Marginal Deterrence in Enforcement of Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 1039-1066, October.
    11. Block, Michael Kent & Nold, Frederick Carl, 1981. "The Deterrent Effect of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(3), pages 429-445, June.
    12. David P. Baron & David Besanko, 1984. "Regulation, Asymmetric Information, and Auditing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 447-470, Winter.
    13. Marie-Cécile Fagart & Saïd Souam, 1999. "Optimal Contract with Random Auditing," Working Papers 99-71, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    14. Spulber, Daniel F & Besanko, David, 1992. "Delegation, Commitment, and the Regulatory Mandate," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 126-154, March.
    15. Graetz, Michael J & Reinganum, Jennifer F & Wilde, Louis L, 1986. "The Tax Compliance Game: Toward an Interactive Theory of Law Enforcement," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-32, Spring.
    16. Steven Shavell & A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2000. "The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 45-76, March.
    17. Keith N. Hylton, 1996. "Optimal Law Enforcement and Victim Precaution," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(1), pages 197-206, Spring.
    18. Souam, Said, 2001. "Optimal antitrust policy under different regimes of fines," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 1-26, January.
    19. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
    20. Nahum D. Melumad & Dilip Mookherjee, 1989. "Delegation as Commitment: The Case of Income Tax Audits," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 20(2), pages 139-163, Summer.
    21. Feinberg, Robert M., 1984. "Strategic and deterrent pricing responses to antitrust investigations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 75-84, March.
    22. Guesnerie, Roger & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1984. "A complete solution to a class of principal-agent problems with an application to the control of a self-managed firm," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 329-369, December.
    23. Posner, Richard A, 1970. "A Statistical Study of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 365-419, October.
    24. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    25. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    26. Khalil, Fahad & Lawarree, Jacques, 1995. "Collusive Auditors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 442-446, May.
    27. Polinsky, Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1979. "The Optimal Tradeoff between the Probability and Magnitude of Fines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(5), pages 880-891, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sami Debbichi & Walid Hichri, 2014. "Market Power and Collusion on Interconnection Phone Market in Tunisia : What Lessons from International Experiences," Working Papers halshs-00956638, HAL.
    2. Kai Zhao, 2015. "Product competition and R&D investment under spillovers within full or partial collusion games," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 24(1), pages 1-27, December.
    3. Le Pape, Nicolas & Zhao, Kai, 2014. "Horizontal mergers and uncertainty," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-31.
    4. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-580 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jellal, Mohamed & Souam, Said, 2012. "A theory of antitrust enforcement game," MPRA Paper 38343, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Jellal, Mohamed & Souam, Said, 2014. "Incentives and optimal antitrust policy," MPRA Paper 57246, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Mohamed Jellal & Saïd Souam, 2004. "Delegation, Incentives and Antitrust Enforcement," Working Papers 2004-41, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    8. Sami ALI Debbichi, 2015. "Market Power and competition effect on Interconnection fees: Econometric Estimation of the Mobile Tunisian Market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 1227-1236.

    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. Pierre Picard, 2012. "Economic Analysis of Insurance Fraud," Working Papers hal-00725561, HAL.
    2. Marcel Boyer & Tracy R. Lewis & Wei Lin Liu, 2000. "Setting standards for credible compliance and law enforcement," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(2), pages 319-340, May.
    3. Kuhn, Michael & Siciliani, Luigi, 2013. "Manipulation and auditing of public sector contracts," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 251-267.
    4. M. Martin Boyer, 2007. "Resistance (to Fraud) Is Futile," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 461-492, June.
    5. Jean-Jacques Laffont, 2003. "Enforcement, Regulation and Development," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(Supplemen), pages 193-211, September.
    6. Parikshit Ghosh, 2009. "Making the Punishment Fit the Crime or Taliban Justice? Optimal Penalties Without Commitment," Working papers 175, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    7. P. Picard, 1998. "Insurance fraud : theory," THEMA Working Papers 98-26, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    8. M. Martin Boyer, 2004. "Overcompensation as a Partial Solution to Commitment and Renegotiation Problems: The Case of Ex Post Moral Hazard," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 71(4), pages 559-582, December.
    9. Choe, Chongwoo, 1998. "Contract design and costly verification games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 327-340, February.
    10. Roland Kirstein, 2014. "Doping, the Inspection Game, and Bayesian Enforcement," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(4), pages 385-409, August.
    11. Bénédicte Coestier & Nathalie Fombaron, 2003. "L'audit en assurance," THEMA Working Papers 2003-41, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    12. Khalil, Fahad & Lawarree, Jacques, 2001. "Catching the agent on the wrong foot: ex post choice of monitoring," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 327-347, December.
    13. Guasch, J. Luis & Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Straub, Stéphane, 2008. "Renegotiation of concession contracts in Latin America: Evidence from the water and transport sectors," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 421-442, March.
    14. Francesc Dilmé & Daniel F Garrett, 2019. "Residual Deterrence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(5), pages 1654-1686.
    15. M. Martin Boyer & Richard Peter, 2020. "Insurance Fraud in a Rothschild–Stiglitz World," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 87(1), pages 117-142, March.
    16. Kaplow, Louis & Shavell, Steven, 1994. "Optimal Law Enforcement with Self-Reporting of Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(3), pages 583-606, June.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6456 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Anna Rita Germani, 2007. "The Environmental Enforcement in the Civil and the Common Law Systems. A Case on the Economic Effects of Legal Institutions," Quaderni DSEMS 22-2007, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Matematiche e Statistiche, Universita' di Foggia.
    19. Leandro Arozamena & Martin Besfamille & Pablo Sanguinetti, 2010. "Optimal taxes and penalties when the government cannot commit to its audit policy," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-10, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    20. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2002. "Tax avoidance, evasion, and administration," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 22, pages 1423-1470, Elsevier.
    21. Marie-Cécile Fagart & Pierre Picard, 1999. "Optimal Insurance Under Random Auditing," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 24(1), pages 29-54, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:crs:wpaper:99-26. 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: Secretariat General (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crestfr.html .

    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.