IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v90y2025ics1043951x25000197.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Delegation and strategic collusion under antitrust policies: An experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Jeong Yeol

Abstract

When firm owners delegate decision-making to managers, such as corporate executives who operate firms directly, a firm's behavior can vary depending on how the owner determines the incentives of the managers. This study employs a lab experiment to investigate the impact of delegation on collusive behavior of firms in a situation where antitrust policies exist. The experiment highlights the following two key findings: (i) Firms form cartels strategically, alternating their collusive and competitive output to evade antitrust regulations, rather than consistently producing collusive output to maximize joint profits; and (ii) Delegation does not necessarily increase the overall number of cartels, but it may change how cartels are formed.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Jeong Yeol, 2025. "Delegation and strategic collusion under antitrust policies: An experiment," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:90:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25000197
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X25000197
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102361?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Delegation; Collusion; Cartel; Antitrust;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • L44 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Antitrust Policy and Public Enterprise, Nonprofit Institutions, and Professional Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:90:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25000197. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.