IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jhu/papers/573.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corporate Leniency with Private Information: The Push of Prosecution and the Pull of Pre-emption

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph E. Harrington, Jr.

Abstract

A corporate leniency program provides relief from government penalties to the first member of a cartel to come forward and cooperate with the authorities. This study explores the incentives to apply for leniency when each cartel member has private information as to the likelihood that the competition authority will be able to convict them without a cooperating firm. A firm may apply for leniency because it fears being convicted ("prosecution effect") or because it fears another firm will apply ("pre-emption effect"). Policies by the competition authority to magnify concerns about pre-emption - and thereby induce greater use of the leniency program - are also explored.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2011. "Corporate Leniency with Private Information: The Push of Prosecution and the Pull of Pre-emption," Economics Working Paper Archive 573, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:jhu:papers:573
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ2.jhu.edu/REPEC/papers/wp573.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2005. "Optimal Corporate Leniency Programs," Economics Working Paper Archive 527, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    2. Motta, Massimo & Polo, Michele, 2003. "Leniency programs and cartel prosecution," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 347-379, March.
    3. 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.
    4. Joseph E. Harrington & Myong-Hun Chang, 2009. "Modeling the Birth and Death of Cartels with an Application to Evaluating Competition Policy," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(6), pages 1400-1435, December.
    5. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, 2006. "Modelling the Birth and Death of Cartels with an Application to Evaluating Antitrust Policy," Economics Working Paper Archive 532, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    6. Joseph E. Harrington, 2008. "Optimal Corporate Leniency Programs," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 215-246, June.
    7. A. Pinna, 2010. "Optimal Leniency Programs in Antitrust," Working Paper CRENoS 201018, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    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. Gärtner, D.L. & Zhou, J., 2012. "Delays in Leniency Application : Is There Really a Race to the Enforcer’s Door?," Other publications TiSEM cbb8fac0-0cd7-4a0c-a6d4-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. 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.
    3. Jun Zhou, 2016. "The dynamics of leniency application and the knock-on effect of cartel enforcement," Bruegel Working Papers 13042, Bruegel.
    4. Salvatore Piccolo & Giovanni Immordino, 2012. "Optimal Accomplice-Witnesses Regulation under Asymmetric Information," CSEF Working Papers 304, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. Gärtner, D.L. & Zhou, J., 2012. "Delays in Leniency Application : Is There Really a Race to the Enforcer’s Door?," Discussion Paper 2012-044, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    6. Gärtner, Dennis L. & Zhou, Jun, 2012. "Delays in Leniency Application: Is There Really a Race to the Enforcer's Door?," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 395, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.

    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. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2009. "When Does a Self-Serving Antitrust Authority Act in Society's Best Interests?," Economics Working Paper Archive 549, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    2. Myong-Hun Chang & Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2008. "The Impact of a Corporate Leniency Program on Antitrust Enforcement and Cartelization," Economics Working Paper Archive 548, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    3. Emons, Winand, 2020. "The effectiveness of leniency programs when firms choose the degree of collusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Isogai, Shigeki & Shen, Chaohai, 2023. "Multiproduct firm’s reputation and leniency program in multimarket collusion," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Joseph E. Harrington, 2012. "Corporate Leniency with Private Information: An Exploratory Example," Chapters, in: Joseph E. Harrington Jr & Yannis Katsoulacos (ed.), Recent Advances in the Analysis of Competition Policy and Regulation, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. 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.
    9. Marc Blatter & Winand Emons & Silvio Sticher, 2018. "Optimal Leniency Programs When Firms Have Cumulative and Asymmetric Evidence," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(3), pages 403-427, May.
    10. Peter T. Dijkstra & Jonathan Frisch, 2018. "Sanctions and Leniency to Individuals, and its Impact on Cartel Discoveries: Evidence from the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 111-134, March.
    11. Bigoni, Maria & Fridolfsson, Sven-Olof & Le Coq, Chloé & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2008. "Fines, Leniency and Rewards in Antitrust: An Experiment," Working Paper Series 738, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 06 Aug 2009.
    12. Yui Law & Sinchit Lai & Ning Liu, 2025. "Leniency experiments: an evaluation of external validity," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 19-76, February.
    13. Joan-Ramon Borrell & Juan Luis Jiménez & Carmen García, 2014. "Evaluating Antitrust Leniency Programs," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 107-136.
    14. Antonio Acconcia & Giovanni Immordino & Salvatore Piccolo & Patrick Rey, 2014. "Accomplice Witnesses and Organized Crime: Theory and Evidence from Italy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 116(4), pages 1116-1159, October.
    15. Zhou, Jun, 2011. "Evaluating Leniency with Missing Information on Undetected Cartels: Exploring Time-Varying Policy Impacts on Cartel Duration," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 353, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    16. 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.
    17. Sven Heim & Kai Hhschelrath & Ulrich Laitenberger & Yossi Spiegel, 2017. "Minority Share Acquisitions and Collusion: Evidence from the Introduction of National Leniency Programs," Working Papers hal-01952937, HAL.
    18. Jochem, Annabelle & Parrotta, Pierpaolo & Valletta, Giacomo, 2020. "The impact of the 2002 reform of the EU leniency program on cartel outcomes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:jhu:papers:573. 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: Humphrey Muturi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dejhuus.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.