Standard methods in the U.S. for calculating antitrust damages in price-fixing cases are shown to create a strategic incentive for firms to price above the non-collusive price after the cartel has been dissolved. This results in an overestimate of the but for price and an underestimate of the...

Price dynamics are characterized when a price-fixing cartel is concerned about creating suspicions of the presence of a cartel. A dynamical extension of static models yields the counterfactual prediction that the cartel initially raises price and then gradually lowers it. An alternative...

Collusion under imperfect monitoring is explored when firms' prices are private information and their quantities are public information; an information structure consistent with several recent price-fixing cartels such as those in lysine and vitamins. For a class of symmetric duopoly games, it...

Price-fixing is characterized when firms are concerned about creating suspicions that a cartel has formed. Antitrust laws have a complex effect on pricing as they interact with the conditions determining the internal stability of the cartel. The qualitative properties of pricing dynamics are...

The dynamic behavior of a price-fixing cartel is explored when it is concerned about creating suspicions that a cartel has formed. Consistent with preceding static theories, the cartel's steady-state price is decreasing in the damage multiple and the probability of detection. However, contrary...

The tendency for the members of a corporation or government to be resistant to change is explored in a model that encompasses two endemic features of such systems. First, the social system is modeled as a hierarchy, and implicit within it is a selection process that determines who advances to...

For the purpose of explaining interindustry variation in the geographic distribution of firms, this article explores the impact of product heterogeneity on the incentives for firms to cluster in the presence of a ubiquitous "periphery" of stand-alone firms. Our analysis revolves around two...

Collusion under imperfect monitoring is explored when firms' prices are private information and their quantities are public information; an information structure consistent with several recent price-fixing cartels such as those in lysine and vitamins. For a class of symmetric duopoly games, it...

This paper distills and organizes facts about cartels from about 20 European Commission decisions over 2000–2004. It describes the properties of a collusive outcome in terms of the setting of price and a market allocation, monitoring of agreements with respect to price but more importantly...