Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Policy Innovations, Political Preferences, and Cartel Prosecutions

  • Published:
Review of Industrial Organization Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Though antitrust cartel cases have received significant attention, the policy determinants and the political preferences that guide such enforcement remain understudied. We empirically examine the intertemporal shifts in U.S. cartel cases during the period 1969–2013. This period has seen substantive policy innovations with increasing penalties that are related to fines and jail terms. There appear to be four distinct cartel policy regimes: pre-1978, 1978–1992, 1993–2003, and 2004–2013. Our empirical estimates show significant variation in the number of cartel cases initiated and the penalties imposed across the policy regimes. The more recent regimes are characterized by far fewer cartel cases initiated, but with substantially higher penalties levied on firms and individuals. While effective deterrence is one explanation for these patterns, we are more inclined to conclude that U.S. cartel enforcement has seen an underlying shift away from focusing on smaller cartels to larger and multinational cartels. In terms of political effects, our results reveal no clear inter-political party effect, but there appear to be interesting intra-political party effects. We find that particular Presidencies matter for cartel enforcement, and variation across Presidential administrations led to marked shifts in the total number of cartel cases initiated. Overall, the shifts in the prosecution patterns portray changing policy priorities and a search for the optimal enforcement design to curtail one of the clearest sources of welfare loss, collusion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Bork (1978), Posner (1976), Demsetz (1973), Stigler (1964), Director and Levi (1956), Bowman (1957), McGee (1958), and Telser (1960).

  2. A number of Chicago School scholars supported financial penalties only and opposed incarceration for individual cartel members (Becker 1968; Posner 1976; Elzinga and Breit 1976).

  3. Bork (1978), pp. 263, 268.

  4. E.g., Harrington and Chang (2015) and Miller (2009).

  5. E.g., Spagnolo (2004), Chen and Harrington (2007), and Harrington (2008).

  6. E.g., Long, Schramm and Tollison (1973), Siegfried (1975), Posner (1970), Gallo, Dau-Schmidt, Craycraft and Parker (2000), Ghosal (2011a, b), Ghosal and Gallo (2001) and Ghosal and Sokol (2014). Most papers focus on a change in the party of the President, which may shift resources within DOJ across criminal and civil conduct and mergers because of a change in enforcement philosophy. In general, it is assumed that Democrats are overall more pro-enforcement while Republicans are more laissez fair.

  7. For example, we find that under Reagan, which was the period associated that is most with a shift to Chicago thinking and a relative lack of enforcement (Pitofsky 2008), cartel prosecutions reached their peak in the post-WWII era. However, during the George W. Bush presidency, which was a presidency that is also defined by its Chicago antitrust approach (Baker and Shapiro 2008), there was a precipitous drop in the number of cartels prosecuted relative to Reagan (as well as Clinton and Obama).

  8. In this paper we study U.S. federal cartel prosecution and do not examine state level enforcement, as has been done by Feinberg and Reynolds (2010).

  9. Though the original leniency program was introduced in 1978, DOJ Antitrust had been discussing the leniency program since 1976, according to senior DOJ Antitrust officials at the time with whom we conferred.

  10. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7.

  11. 15 U.S.C. § 16.

  12. ACPERA, Pub. L. No. 108–237. Tit. II. 118 Stat. 661, 665.

  13. United States v. Alexander & Reid Co., 280 Fed. 924, 927 (S.D.N.Y. 1922).

  14. United States v. McDonough Co., 1960 Trade Cases (CCH) 69,695 (S.D. Ohio, 9 December 1959).

  15. This was based on a then famous speech by DOJ Antitrust head Don Baker in 1976. See Baker (1976, 2011).

  16. Until the implementation of the Sentencing Guidelines, judges were reluctant to impose significant sentences on white collar offenders.

  17. As a consequence, the US Sentencing Guidelines were amended in 2005 to reflect this change based on lobbying by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. See Hammond (2005).

  18. Only one leniency application was received per year and not a single leniency application was for an international cartel (Hammond 2004). An important issue also is that DOJ’s resource allocation changed shortly after the introduction of leniency. In 1979, the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976 went through its first full year of implementation. The first year of merger filing notifications totaled over 800 filings. Increasingly, merger control became far more resource intensive, which potentially distracted from other areas of enforcement.

  19. The year 1996 also marked the first use of the alternative fine statute [18 U.S.C. § 3571(d)].

  20. As International Competition Policy Advisory Committee (2000, at chapter 4) noted, the change in international priorities and the effect of new leniency were significant within a short time span. “From 1987 through 1990, the Antitrust Division did not file a single criminal cartel case against a foreign-based corporation or individual…By 1997, the figures had surged so that 32 % of corporate defendants and the same number of individual defendants were foreign-based.”

  21. These are the data that are presented by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division as their official statistics, and also presented to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for the Antitrust Division’s activities and request for resources. For the various years, the data are contained in downloadable files available at the https://search.justice.gov/search?query=workload&op=Search&affiliate=justice.

    Some of the older data were obtained by authors’ request to the DOJ. While our overall data start in 1969, for some of the variables—such as those related to penalties—the starting year is 1970.

  22. As reported in their official statistics (see URL in above footnote).

  23. Changes in case law as to a tightening of procedural antitrust [Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574 (1986)] may have shifted prosecutions and overall cartel enforcement as well.

  24. Antitrust Amendments Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101–588, 104 Stat. 2879 (1990).

  25. In our estimation strategy, we follow a reduced-form approach. This is dictated by the fact that we simply do not have the necessary data to estimate a structural model. A structural model would involve (at a minimum) an equation for cartel formation and an equation for cartel detection with the necessary data for estimation. White (1988) presents a discussion of structural versus reduced form approaches.

  26. A widely used modeling strategy to examine the dynamic path of variables has been to consider a decision-maker’s objective to minimize the expected present value of a quadratic loss function, subject to adjustment and disequilibrium costs. The conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of this framework are spelled out in, for example, Hendry et al. (1983) and Kennan (1979).

  27. If λ is closer to 1 it would imply that adjustment to the new equilibrium/desired level takes places almost instantly; whereas if λ is closer to 0. This would imply a slower adjustment process.

  28. Chen and Harrington (2007), Hammond (2004, 2010), and Motta (2004).

  29. While these factors have transformed cartel enforcement, in the bigger picture these changes can be viewed as endogenous to broader shifts in intellectual thinking about cartel enforcement and the political willingness to prosecute (Baker 2002; Ghosal 2011b; Kovacic and Shapiro 2000).

  30. Due to the extensive overlap of time periods, we cannot include separate dummy variables for the new Leniency period and the Antitrust Amendments Act. However, it is important to note that Policy2 covers the period 1978–1992, so Antitrust Amendments Act—which went into effect right at the end of 1990—is really at the tail end of our Policy2 period. Our contention is that any meaningful effect of Antitrust Amendments Act will be felt in Policy3 period which starts in 1993, as opposed to Policy2 (which ends in 1992). There was a lag time for the Antitrust Amendments Act to really take effect in the court; this occurred during the 1995–1999 period in which DOJ was able to get fines of $10 million of more (against 27 different companies). Note that this lag matches very nicely with the new leniency, which begins in earnest in 1996 with fines in the lysine cartel. A lagged effect is also important because it was some time until the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and alternative fining statutes really took hold for cartels. So our imputing the Antitrust Amendments Act effect to the Policy3 period is reasonable.

  31. The number of cartel cases in the post-WWII period was approximately 20 per year through the Carter years. Prosecutions increased by 112 % during the Reagan administration, and the upswing continued during the George H.W. Bush administration. Since then, the number of cartel cases has tapered off, followed by a marked reduction of prosecutions under George W. Bush administration. There was an uptick during the Obama administration. Ghosal (2006, 2011a, b) surveys the literature and presents estimates on political and Presidential effects for the full range of antitrust enforcement variables; however, in these earlier papers there was no treatment of the alternative policy and institutional regimes that we consider here, along with other differences such as a longer time period and a more detailed consideration of political effects.

  32. Baker (1989), Dick (1996), Ghosal (2008, 2011a), Levenstein and Suslow (2006), Scherer (1980), Slade (1990), and Suslow (2005).

  33. See e.g., the discussion in Ghosal (2011b).

  34. With introduction of Policy(.) features such as leniency, high fines and incarcerations regime, we expect higher deterrence and less collusion. Similarly, if a President regime is such that it is placing greater emphasis on cartel enforcement, detection, and prosecution, we expect collusion to be lower due to the increased likelihood of detection and penalties. The argument regarding Cycle remains the same as before: We expect the propensity to engage in collusion to be higher when economic conditions are weak due to the relationship to low demand. Regarding Funds, the availability of greater investigative resources signals potentially more vigorous enforcement. Since this is a relatively transparent signal, it is potentially expected to influence firms’ behavior towards fewer anti-competitive activities.

  35. For example, consider the following two scenarios. Scenario A: 100 cartel members are caught and each pays a fine of $0.5million, for total fines worth $50 million. Scenario B: 2 bigger/sophisticated cartels members are caught and each pays a fine of $25 million, for total fines worth $50 million. In the above hypothetical, total fines are same in the two scenarios. But the total fine conceals important underlying differences in fines per firm. If the per-firm fines that are paid significantly increase, it also indicates that very likely much bigger cartels are being snared. If these were two gas stations in a one-red-light town that were fixing prices, one would not get $25 million fine per firm.

  36. The standard errors we report are corrected for arbitrary forms of heteroscedasticity in the data. The reported first-order autocorrelations are very low, and mostly insignificant. In alternate specifications we re-estimated the models with an AR(1) correction and this did not change our inferences. The key issue with some the time series—e.g., for the penalties—are the dramatic jumps. Once these are explicitly addressed in the estimation via inclusion of the Policy dummy variables, correction for autocorrelation does not affect our inferences.

  37. As noted earlier in Sect. 4, we use the total number of investigations (all categories) by the Antitrust Division as our main workload control. We experimented with alternate variables to control for this. For example, in the estimated regressions we replaced the total investigations variable by: other types of workload variables such as preliminary investigations, civil investigative demands, non-cartel investigations, and M&As. As with the main variable we use to proxy Busy, these alternate variables were not significant and do not alter our overall inferences. As this is one of the control variables and not the main focus of the paper, to save space we do not add additional tables.

  38. As we had noted in our data section, some of the variables—such as those related to the various penalties—show distinct characteristics such as large jumps. This is due to the Policy effects which we control for explicitly in the estimated specifications. Once these jumps in the data series are controlled for explicitly with the Policy dummies, there is little additional explanatory power of the lagged dependent variable.

  39. The clear effects under our estimation of ACPERA contrast with Miller (2009) and Sokol (2012). Most likely, these earlier papers did not capture a lag from ACPERA’s passage to effects on enforcement. Miller's data consist of all indictments and information reports filed for violations of Sect. 1 of the Sherman Act between January 1, 1985, and March 15, 2005. Though this period is sufficient to explore the revised 1993 leniency program’s effects, the data endpoint of March 2005 is clearly not enough time to examine the 2004 ACPERA effects. Sokol’s data consists of both qualitative and quantitative survey data of cartel practitioners but soon after passage of ACPERA.

  40. It has, however, been noted that these were local cartels with limited effects (Levenstein and Suslow 2008).

  41. During the George W. Bush period, there was also a drop in DOJ civil antitrust enforcement and in merger enforcement based on case counts. While there has been critique of low enforcement during George W. Bush, none of the critiques in policy (Varney 2009) or academic (Baker and Shapiro 2008) circles discussed the low total number of cartel cases.

  42. In 1962, Regulation 17/62 set the maximum penalty at 10 % of annual turnover for a firm. The first cartel infringement decision was in 1969 in the Quinine case, in which the penalty was 500,000 European Unit of Account, with the first fine of 1 million European Current Unit (which replaced EUA) in 1982 (Schinkel 2007).

References

  • Aguzzoni, G., Langus, G., & Motta, M. (2013). The effect of EU antitrust investigations and fines on the firm valuation. Journal of Industrial Economics, 61(2), 290–338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, D. (1976). To make the penalty fit the crime: How to sentence antitrust felons. Remarks before the Tenth New England Antitrust Conference 20 Nov 1976.

  • Baker, J. (2002). A preface to Post-Chicago antitrust. In R. van den Bergh, R. Pardolesi, & A. Cucinotta (Eds.), Post-Chicago developments in antitrust analysis. London: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, D. (2011). Criminalizing cartels: A critical interdisciplinary study of an international regulatory movement. In C. Beaton-Wells & A. Ezrachi (Eds.). Oxford: Hart Publishing.

  • Baker, J. (1989). Identifying cartel policing under uncertainty: The U.S. steel industry, 1933–1939. Journal of Law and Economics, 32, S47–S76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, J., & Shapiro, C. (2008). Reinvigorating horizontal merger enforcement. In Robert Pitofsky (Ed.), Where the Chicago school overshot the mark: The effect of conservative economic analysis on antitrust. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, G. (1968). Crime and punishment: An economic approach. Journal of Political Economy, 76, 169–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, M. K., Nold, F. C., & Sidak, J. G. (1981). The deterrent effect of antitrust enforcement. Journal of Political Economy, 89(3), 429–445.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bork, R. (1978). The antitrust paradox. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowman, W. S. (1957). Tying arrangements and the leverage problem. Yale Law Journal, 67, 19–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, J., & Harrington, J. E. (2007). The impact of the corporate leniency program on cartel formation and the cartel price path”. In V. Ghosal & J. Stennek (Eds.), The political economy of antitrust (pp. 59–80). New York: Elsevier.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Z., & Rey, P. (2013). On the design of leniency programs. Journal of Law and Economics, 56, 917–957.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coate, M. B., Higgins, R. S., & McChesney, F. S. (1990). Bureaucracy and politics in FTC merger challenges. Journal of Law and Economics, 33(2), 463–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connor, J. M. (2001). Global price fixing: Our customers are the enemy. New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Demsetz, H. (1973). Industry structure, market rivalry, and public policy. Journal of Law and Economics, 16, 1–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Department of Justice Antitrust Division. (1977). Guidelines for sentencing: Recommendations in Felony cases under the Sherman Act 24 Feb 1977.

  • Dick, A. (1996). When are cartels stable contracts? Journal of Law and Economics, 39, 241–283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Director, A., & Levi, E. (1956). Law and the future: Trade regulation. Northwestern University Law Review, 51, 281–296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eckbo, P. L. (1976). The future of world oil. Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elzinga, K. G., & Breit, W. (1976). The antitrust penalties: A study in law and economics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feinberg, R. (1980). Antitrust enforcement and subsequent price behavior. Review of Economics and Statistics, 62, 609–612.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feinberg, R., & Reynolds, K. (2010). The determinants of state-level antitrust activity. Review of Industrial Organization, 37, 179–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallo, J. C., Dau-Schmidt, K., Craycraft, J. L., & Parker, C. J. (2000). Department of Justice antitrust enforcement, 1955–1997: An empirical study. Review of Industrial Organization, 17, 75–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghosal, V. (2006). Economics, politics and merger control. In J. P. Choi (Ed.), Recent developments in antitrust: Theory and evidence (pp. 125–152). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghosal, V. (2008). The genesis of cartel investigations: Some insights from examining the dynamic interrelationships between U.S. civil and criminal antitrust investigations. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 4, 61–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghosal, V. (2011a). The law and economics of enhancing cartel enforcement: Using information from non-cartel investigations to prosecute cartels. Review of Law and Economics, 7, 50–538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghosal, V. (2011b). Regime shift in antitrust laws, economics and enforcement. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 7, 733–774.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghosal, V., & Gallo, J. (2001). The cyclical behavior of the Department of Justice’s antitrust enforcement. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 19, 27–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghosal, V., & Sokol, D. D. (2014). The evolution of U.S. cartel enforcement. Journal of Law and Economics, 57, S51–S65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hammond, S. (2004). Cornerstones of an effective leniency program, Address before the ICN Workshop on Leniency Programs. Accessed 22 Nov 2004.

  • Hammond, S. (2005). Testimony before the United States Sentencing Commission. Accessed 12 Apr 2005.

  • Hammond, S. (2010). The evolution of criminal antitrust enforcement over the last two decades, Address before the 24th Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime. Accessed 25 Feb 2010.

  • Harrington, J. (2004). Cartel pricing dynamics in the presence of an antitrust authority. RAND Journal of Economics, 35, 651–673.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrington, J. (2008). Detecting cartels. In P. Buccirossi (Ed.), Handbook of antitrust economics. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrington, J., & Chang, M. (2015). When should we expect a corporate leniency program to result in fewer cartels? Journal of Law and Economics, 58, 417–449.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hendry, D., Pagan, A., & Sargan, D. (1983). Dynamic specification. In Z. Griliches & M. Intriligator (Eds.), Handbook of econometrics. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jorgenson, D. (1986). Econometric methods for modeling producer behavior. In Z. Griliches & M. Intriligator (Eds.), Handbook of econometrics. Amsterdam: North Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennan, J. (1979). The estimation of partial adjustment models under rational expectations. Econometrica, 47, 1441–1455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, J. (1999). Prepared statement of Joel I. Klein, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition Subcommittee 4 May 1999.

  • Kovacic, W. E., & Shapiro, C. (2000). Antitrust policy: A century of economic and legal thinking. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(1), 43–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landes, W. M. (1983). Optimal sanctions for antitrust violations. University of Chicago Law Review, 50, 652–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levenstein, M., & Suslow, V. (2004). Studies of cartel stability. In P. Grossman (Ed.), How cartels endure and how they fail (pp. 9–52). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levenstein, M., & Suslow, V. (2006). What determines cartel success? Journal of Economic Literature, 44, 43–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levenstein, M., & Suslow, V. (2008). Cartels. In L. Blume & S. Durlauf (Eds.), The new Palgrave dictionary of economics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levenstein, M., & Suslow, V. (2011). Breaking up is hard to do: Determinants of cartel duration. Journal of Law and Economics, 54, 455–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levenstein, M., & Suslow, V. (2014). Cartels and collusion—Empirical evidence. In R. D. Blair & D. D. Sokol (Eds.), Oxford handbook of international antitrust economics (Vol. 2, pp. 442–463). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Long, W., Schramm, R., & Tollison, R. (1973). The economic determinants of antitrust activity. Journal of Law and Economics, 16, 351–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx, L. M., Mezzetti, C., & Marshall, R. C. (2015). Antitrust leniency with multi-market colluders. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 7(3), 205–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGee, J. S. (1958). Predatory price cutting: The standard oil (NJ) case. Journal of Law and Economics, 1, 137–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, N. (2009). Strategic seniency and cartel enforcement. American Economic Review, 99, 750–768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Motta, M. (2004). Competition policy: Theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Posner, R. A. (1970). A statistical study of antitrust enforcement. Journal of Law and Economics, 365, 365–419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posner, R. A. (1976). Antitrust law: An economic analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pitofsky, R. (2008). How the Chicago school overshot the mark: The effect of conservative economic analysis on U.S. Antitrust. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Russo, F., Schinkel, M. P., & Gunster, A. (2010). European commission decisions on competition economic perspectives on landmark antitrust and merger cases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, F. (1980). Industrial market structure and economic performance. Boston: Haughton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schinkel, M. P. (2007). Effective cartel enforcement in Europe. World Competition, 30(4), 539–572.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegfried, J. (1975). The determinants of antitrust activity. Journal of Law and Economics, 18, 559–574.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slade, M. E. (1990). Strategic pricing models and interpretation of price-war data. European Economic Review, 34, 524–537.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sokol, D. D. (2012). Cartels, compliance and what practitioners really think about enforcement. Antitrust Law Journal, 78, 201–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spagnolo, G. (2004). Divide et Impera: Optimal leniency programs. CEPR Discussion Paper 4840.

  • Spagnolo, G. (2008). Leniency and whistleblowers in antitrust. In Paolo Buccirossi (Ed.), Handbook of antitrust economics (pp. 259–304). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephan, A. (2009). An empirical assessment of the European Leniency notice. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 5, 537–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stigler, G. (1964). A theory of oligopoly. Journal of Political Economy, 72, 44–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suslow, V. (2005). Cartel contract duration: Empirical evidence from inter-war international cartels. Industrial and Corporate Change, 14, 705–744.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Telser, L. G. (1960). Why should manufacturers want fair trade? Journal of Law and Economics, 3, 86–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Varney, C. (2009). Vigorous antitrust enforcement in this challenging era. Remarks as Prepared for the United States Chamber of Commerce. Accessed 12 May 2009.

  • White, L. J. (1988). Litigation and economic incentives. Research in Law and Economics, 11, 73–90.

    Google Scholar 

Cases

  • Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7.

  • Antitrust Amendments Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101–588, 104 Stat. 2879 (1990).

  • Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act, 15 U.S.C. § 16.

  • ACPERA, Pub. L. No. 108–237. Tit. II. 118 Stat. 661, 665.

  • General Criminal Fine Statute, Alternative Fine Based on Gain or Loss 18 U.S.C. § 3571(d).

Statutes

  • Antitrust Amendments Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-588, 104 Stat. 2879 (1990).

  • Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act, 15 U.S.C. § 16.

  • ACPERA, Pub. L. No. 108-237. Tit. II. 118 Stat. 661, 665.

  • General Criminal Fine Statute, Alternative Fine Based on Gain or Loss 18 U.S.C. § 3571(d). Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

    Vivek Ghosal

  2. CESifo, Munich, Germany

    Vivek Ghosal

  3. Levin College of Law, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

    D. Daniel Sokol

Authors
  1. Vivek Ghosal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. D. Daniel Sokol
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vivek Ghosal.

Additional information

For valuable suggestions and comments, we thank conference participants at NYU Law School, Yale Law School, University of Minnesota School of Law, University of California-Berkeley Law School, Social Sciences Korea International Conference on Competition Law Enforcement (Yonsei University), Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research Institute for Industrial Economics (Stockholm), University of Melbourne, Workshop on Applied Microeconomics (CESifo, Munich), Workshop on Competition Law and Innovation (ZEW, Mannheim), and Roger Blair, Dennis Carlton, Dale Collins, Harry First, Douglas Ginsburg, Jinook Jeong, Al Klevorick, Margaret Levenstein, Barak Orbach, George Priest, Eric Rasmussen, and Larry White. We are extremely grateful to Bob Feinberg and Larry White for extensive and constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ghosal, V., Sokol, D.D. Policy Innovations, Political Preferences, and Cartel Prosecutions. Rev Ind Organ 48, 405–432 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11151-016-9516-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11151-016-9516-1

Keywords

JEL Classification

Search

Navigation