This paper examines endogenous cartel formation in the presence of a competition authority. Competition policy is shown to make the most inclusive stable cartels less inclusive. In particular, small firms that might have been cartel members in the absence of a competition authority are no longer...

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 growth-conscious members to be...

Towards understanding what makes a cartel successful, this chapter examines a variety of collusive practices with an eye to how they vary in their efficacy in establishing and sustaining supracompetitive prices and in the legal risk they create for firms. Four conditions for cartel success are...

After arguing that collusion by software programs which choose pricing rules without any human intervention is not in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Act, the paper offers a path towards making collusion by autonomous agents unlawful

Estimates of average cartel duration and the annual probability of cartel death are based on data for discovered cartels. It is recognized that these estimates could be biased because the population of discovered cartels may not be a representative sample of the latent population of cartels....

This paper investigates the deterrent impact of competition enforcement on cartels. It is shown theoretically that if enforcement is effective in deterring and constraining cartels then there will be fewer cartels with low overcharges and fewer with high overcharges. This prediction provides an...