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

The private exchange of prices by competitors has long been a source of anticompetitive concern. Based on claims of possible procompetitive effects, the Supreme Court decided that antitrust challenges to these exchanges should be evaluated under the rule of reason. In reviewing the jurisprudence...

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...

Hub-and-spoke collusion is when firms in a market coordinate their conduct by communicating through an upstream supplier or downstream customer. This study examines nine hub-and-spoke cartels towards understanding how they operate: What is the collusive scheme? How do firms achieve mutual...

When firms engage in price discrimination under competition, they can face a trade-off when choosing to collude. In order to maintain price discrimination, upper-level executives may have to involve those lower-level employees with the demand information needed to tailor prices to markets and...

There are well-documented episodes for which prices remained at supracompetitive levels even after a cartel had been shut down by the competition authority. As long as market conditions remain reasonably stable, it is quite possible that collusive prices will still be incentive compatible so the...

A growing market is the supply of pricing algorithms by software developers. While there is an efficiency rationale for outsourcing pricing, anticompetitive concerns have been expressed when competitors in a market adopt the same pricing algorithm. These concerns have resulted in private...