Leniency programs lower the expected cost of anticompetitive behavior to the extent that they allow colluding firms to pay reduced fines. This paper connects this potential adverse effect to the number of firms involved in the cartel agreement. It is shown that leniency programs may provide...

We describe a simple initial indicator of whether a proposed merger between rivals in a differentiated product industry is likely to raise prices through unilateral effects. Our diagnostic calibrates upward pricing pressure (UPP) resulting from the merger, based on the price/cost margins of the...