IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jcomle/v4y2008i1p115-128..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On The Allegedly Invisible Dutch Construction Sector Cartel

Author

Listed:
  • Peter A.G. van Bergeijk

Abstract

This paper considers an extensive cartel contamination of markets in the Dutch construction sector. Overwhelming legal evidence of bid rigging in this sector was obtained in 486 leniency applications in which complete secret accounts were submitted. I offer a case study and a broadly based post mortem of methodologies that were applied earlier to detect malfunctioning markets in the Netherlands, but failed to identify the construction sector as problematic. It is concluded that these studies were seriously flawed. Theoretical and empirical economic forensics (if properly applied) creates value for antitrust authorities in detection of antitrust violations directly, or by informing them where to look for direct evidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, 2008. "On The Allegedly Invisible Dutch Construction Sector Cartel," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 115-128.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:jcomle:v:4:y:2008:i:1:p:115-128.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/joclec/nhm021
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aoyagi, Masaki, 2003. "Bid rotation and collusion in repeated auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 79-105, September.
    2. Peter A.G. van Bergeijk & Robert C.G. Haffner, 1996. "Privatization, Deregulation and the Macroeconomy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 905.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ghosal Vivek, 2011. "The Law and Economics of Enhancing Cartel Enforcement: Using Information From Non-Cartel Investigations to Prosecute Cartels," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 501-538, December.
    2. van Bergeijk, P.A.G., 2009. "What could anti-trust in the OECD do for development?," ISS Working Papers - General Series 18720, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    3. Xiaowei Wang & Wuyan Long & Meiyue Sang & Yang Yang, 2022. "Towards Sustainable Urbanization: Exploring the Influence Paths of the Urban Environment on Bidders’ Collusive Willingness," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-14, February.
    4. In Lee & Kyungdong Hahn, 2002. "Bid-Rigging in Auctions for Korean Public-Works Contracts and Potential Damage," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 21(1), pages 73-88, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolas Gruyer, 2009. "Optimal Auctions When A Seller Is Bound To Sell To Collusive Bidders," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 835-850, December.
    2. Cremer, Jacques & Khalil, Fahad, 1992. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 566-578, June.
    3. Martin, Alberto & Vergote, Wouter, 2008. "On the role of retaliation in trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 61-77, September.
    4. Andrea Amelio & Sara Biancini, 2010. "Alternating Monopoly And Tacit Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 402-423, June.
    5. Hu, Audrey & Offerman, Theo & Onderstal, Sander, 2011. "Fighting collusion in auctions: An experimental investigation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 84-96, January.
    6. Martin Huber & David Imhof & Rieko Ishii, 2022. "Transnational machine learning with screens for flagging bid‐rigging cartels," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(3), pages 1074-1114, July.
    7. Paul Klemperer, 2007. "Bidding Markets," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-47.
    8. Zhang, Wenzhang, 2022. "Collusion enforcement in repeated first-price auctions," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(4), November.
    9. Arai, Koki & Ishibashi, Ikuo & Ishii-Ishibashi, Rieko, 2011. "Research and analysis on bid rigging mechanisms," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-5, January.
    10. Nicolas Gruyer, 2005. "Using lotteries in auctions when buyers collude," Economics Working Papers 02, LEEA (air transport economics laboratory), ENAC (french national civil aviation school).
    11. Brett Bryan & Jeffery Connor et al, 2005., 2005. "Catchment Care - Developing an Auction Process for Biodiversity and Water Quality Gains. Volume 1 - Report," Natural Resource Management Economics 05_004, Policy and Economic Research Unit, CSIRO Land and Water, Adelaide, Australia.
    12. Olszewski, Wojciech & Safronov, Mikhail, 2018. "Efficient cooperation by exchanging favors," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    13. John Asker & Chaim Fershtman & Jihye Jeon & Ariel Pakes, 2016. "The Competitive Effects of Information Sharing," NBER Working Papers 22836, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Che,Y.-K. & Kim,J., 2004. "Collusion-proof implementation of optimal mechanisms," Working papers 4, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    15. Ludger Lindlar & Wolfgang Scheremet, 1998. "Germany's Slump Explaining the Unemployment Crisis of the 1990s," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 169, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Granlund, David & Rudholm, Niklas, 2023. "Calculating the probability of collusion based on observed price patterns," Umeå Economic Studies 1014, Umeå University, Department of Economics, revised 13 Oct 2023.
    17. Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans & Charles M. Kahn, 2005. "Low-Revenue Equilibria in Simultaneous Ascending-Bid Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 508-518, March.
    18. Rodrigo Harrison & Roger Lagunoff, 2017. "Dynamic Mechanism Design For A Global Commons," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(3), pages 751-782, August.
    19. Lee, Gea M., 2010. "Optimal collusion with internal contracting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 646-669, March.
    20. Susan Athey & Kyle Bagwell, 2008. "Collusion With Persistent Cost Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 493-540, May.

    More about this item

    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:oup:jcomle:v:4:y:2008:i:1:p:115-128.. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jcle .

    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.