This paper investigates the effectiveness of antitrust policy in fighting horizontal collusion under different regimes of policy implementation. We consider two regimes : a public agency regime, where an antitrust authority is in charge of competition policy, and a "delegation" regime, where the...

In a simple economic setting with asymmetric information we compare different social insti- tutions which fight against industry cartels on prices. Firstly, we analyse the case where an Antitrust Authority is created and we distinguish two situations depending whether the agency has the...

In a two period model with asymmetric information we study the optimalantitrust policies carried out by a public agency faced with firms'horizontal price-fixing behaviour. We analyse the effect on social welfare in case the Antitrust Authority decides to bind itself to follow the same policy, an...

Hard Core Cartels aim to design, being aware of the presence of an antitrust authority, market practices granting avoidance of antitrust investigations. We show, in a dynamic game, that they can reach this goal and get extra—normal profits. However, the bulk of this opportunity does not lay,...

We consider vertical price restrictions like Recommended Retail Prices (RRP) and Resale Price Maintenance (RPM), together with a retailer’s unit discount when purchasing the good from the manufacturer. We study how retailer’s buyer power affects the nature of the vertical price restriction...

We analyze the air transportation vertical channel and show the existence of an asymmetric distribution of profit margins between airlines and the firms operating in upstream stages. Higher margins are observed for leasing companies, engine manufacturers and GDS, while airlines exhibit a very...

This paper presents a new stochastic frontier model for panel data. The model takes into account firm unobservable heterogeneity and short-run and long-run sources of inefficiency. Each of these features is modeled by a specific random effect. In this way, firms’ latent heterogeneity is not...