Leniency programs as a tool for cartel detection and cartel destabilization, have been implemented since the early nineties. Theoretical work has shown that leniency programs can be effective in enhancing cartel detection and deterrence, but these effects are not straight-forward. It is even...

We hypothesize a particular source of cartel instability and explore its relevance to understanding cartel dynamics. The cartel instability is rooted in the observation that, upon cartel formation, the relative positions of firms are often fixed which may lead some growthconscious members to be...

In the advent of postal market liberalization in several European countries we expect that the incumbent operators anticipate entry by competitors who are not required to offer universal service, i.e. coverage of the entire country and uniform pricing. The market for postal service exhibits...

In this paper we analyze the incentive of the German postal service (Deutsche Post AG, DPAG) to increase quality in the light of the upcoming liberalization of the postal services market. Currently, there would be no incentive for DPAG to increase its quality if the market were not to be...

While private actions for damages by customers against price-cartels receive much attention, the treatment of other groups affected by such conspiracies is largely unresolved. This article narrows the research gap with respect to suppliers to a downstream price cartel. First, we show that such...

Damage compensation claims in case of cartels are supposed to increase deterrence, compensate losses and increase efficiency. I show that such claims can instead have adverse effects: If suppliers or buyers of cartelists are compensated in proportion to the profits lost due to the cartel,...

While private actions for damages by customers against price-cartels receive much attention, the treatment of other groups affected by such conspiracies is largely unresolved. This article narrows the research gap with respect to suppliers to a downstream price cartel. First, we show that such...

Cartel detection is usually viewed as a key task of either competition authorities or compliance officials in firms with an elevated risk of cartelization. We argue that customers of hard core cartels can have both incentives and possibilities to detect such agreements on their own initiative...

Although the pricing dynamics of hardcore cartels have been studied intensively from a theoretical perspective, empirical evidence is still rare. We combine publicly available data with a unique private data set of about 340,000 market transactions from 36 smaller and larger customers of German...