IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/5794.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Leniency and Whistleblowers in Antitrust

Author

Listed:
  • Spagnolo, Giancarlo

Abstract

The paper reviews the recent evolution of leniency programs for cartels in the US and EU, surveys their theoretical economic analyses, and discusses the empirical and experimental evidence available, also looking briefly at related experiences of rewarding whistleblowers in other fields of law enforcement. It concludes with a list of desiderata for leniency and whistleblower reward programs, simple suggestions how to improve current ones, and an agenda for future research. The issues discussed appear relevant to the fight of other forms of multiagent organized crime - like auditor-manager collusion, financial fraud, or corruption - that share with cartels the crucial features that well designed leniency and whistleblower programs exploit.

Suggested Citation

  • Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2006. "Leniency and Whistleblowers in Antitrust," CEPR Discussion Papers 5794, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5794
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP5794
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bochet, Olivier, 2007. "Switching from complete to incomplete information," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 735-748, August.
    2. Buckenmaier, Johannes & Dimant, Eugen & Mittone, Luigi, 2020. "Effects of institutional history and leniency on collusive corruption and tax evasion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 296-313.
    3. Lawrence J. White, 2012. "Market Power: How Does it Arise? How is it Measured?," Working Papers 12-06, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    4. 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.
    5. Jo Seldeslachts & Joseph A. Clougherty & Pedro Pita Barros, 2007. "Remedy for Now but Prohibit for Tomorrow: The Deterrence Effects of Merger Policy Tools," CIG Working Papers SP II 2007-02, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    6. Ulrich Blum & Nicole Steinat & Michael Veltins, 2008. "On the rationale of leniency programs: a game-theoretical analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 209-229, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Spagnolo, Giancarlo & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2011. "Legalizing Bribes," SITE Working Paper Series 13, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, revised 12 May 2013.
    9. Buccirossi, Paolo & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2006. "Leniency policies and illegal transactions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1281-1297, August.
    10. Shastitko, Andrey (Шаститко, Андрей) & Pavlova, Natalia (Павлова, Наталья), 2015. "Program for Smoothening Punishment for Participating in a Cartel: The Problematic Field, and the Effects of Structural Alternatives [Программа Ослабления Наказания За Участие В Картеле: Проблемное ," Published Papers mn32, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    11. Park, Sangwon, 2014. "The effect of leniency programs on endogenous collusion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 326-330.
    12. 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.
    13. Jeroen Hinloopen & Adriaan Soetevent, 2006. "Trust and Recidivism; the Partial Success of Corporate Leniency Program in the Laboratory," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-067/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. Jun Hu, 2021. "Asymmetric punishment, Leniency and Harassment Bribes in China: a selective survey," Working Papers hal-03119491, HAL.
    15. Spagnolo, Giancarlo & Buccirossi, Paolo, 2006. "Optimal Fines in the Era of Whistleblowers," CEPR Discussion Papers 5465, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Bigoni, Maria & Fridolfsson, Sven-Olof & Le Coq, Chloe & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2008. "Fines, Leniency, Rewards and Organized Crime: Evidence from Antitrust Experiments," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 698, Stockholm School of Economics.
    17. John Connor, 2006. "Effectiveness of Antitrust Sanctions on Modern International Cartels," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 195-223, December.
    18. Asker, John, 2010. "Leniency and post-cartel market conduct: Preliminary evidence from parcel tanker shipping," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 407-414, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Amnesty; Antitrust; Cartels; Collusion; Corruption; Competition policy; Corporate crime; Deterrence; Immunity; Leniency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L44 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Antitrust Policy and Public Enterprise, Nonprofit Institutions, and Professional Organizations

    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:cpr:ceprdp:5794. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.