IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/puaesp/28668.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Reexamination Of The Profitability Of Price Fixing Using Stock Price Movement: Has New Antitrust Legislation Been A More Effective Deterrent Of Price Fixing?

Author

Listed:
  • Detre, Joshua D.
  • Golub, Alla A.

Abstract

The Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust penalties have become harsher for violating individuals and firms, and the criminal enforcement of cases has become increasingly important during the last 20 years. In this study we investigate whether these changes in antitrust law led to improved effectiveness of antitrust actions with respect to price-fixing over 1981-2001. We measure effectiveness by suppressed stock market values of offending firms after successful Section 1 of the Sherman Act indictment, by duration of the deterrent effect and by the rate of recidivism. We use effectiveness of antitrust enforcement documented by Bosch and Eckard (1991) and Thompson and Kaserman (2001) for 1962-80 as a basis for comparison. Our results show that the changes in antitrust law do improve the effectiveness as measured by changes in market valuations of offenders, but the durability of deterrent effect and the rate of recidivism are left unaffected suggesting that Section 1 of Sherman Act enforcement has very little lasting effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Detre, Joshua D. & Golub, Alla A., 2004. "A Reexamination Of The Profitability Of Price Fixing Using Stock Price Movement: Has New Antitrust Legislation Been A More Effective Deterrent Of Price Fixing?," Staff Papers 28668, Purdue University, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:puaesp:28668
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.28668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/28668/files/sp040003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.28668?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Stephen J. & Warner, Jerold B., 1985. "Using daily stock returns : The case of event studies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-31, March.
    2. Bryant, Peter G & Eckard, E Woodrow, Jr, 1991. "Price Fixing: The Probability of Getting Caught," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(3), pages 531-536, August.
    3. Bittlingmayer, George, 1992. "Stock Returns, Real Activity, and the Trust Question," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1701-1730, December.
    4. Huth, William L & MacDonald, Don N, 1989. "The Impact of Antitrust Litigation on Shareholder Return," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 411-426, June.
    5. Block, Michael Kent & Nold, Frederick Carl, 1981. "The Deterrent Effect of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(3), pages 429-445, June.
    6. John Thompson & David Kaserman, 2001. "After The Fall: Stock Price Movements and the Deterrent Effect of Antitrust Enforcement," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 19(3), pages 329-334, November.
    7. Newmark, Craig M, 1988. "Is Antitrust Enforcement Effective? Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(6), pages 1315-1328, December.
    8. Bosch, Jean-Claude & Eckard, E Woodrow, Jr, 1991. "The Profitability of Price Fixing: Evidence from Stock Market Reaction to Federal Indictments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(2), pages 309-317, May.
    9. Joseph Gallo & Kenneth Dau-Schmidt & Joseph Craycraft & Charles Parker, 2000. "Department of Justice Antitrust Enforcement, 1955—1997: An Empirical Study," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 17(1), pages 75-133, August.
    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. Luca Aguzzoni & Gregor Langus & Massimo Motta, 2013. "The Effect of EU Antitrust Investigations and Fines on a Firm's Valuation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 290-338, June.

    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. Stefania Grezzana, 2016. "Lost In Time And Space: The Deterrence Effect Of Cartel Busts On The Retail Gasoline Market," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 158, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    2. Michael Cichello & Douglas Lamdin, 2006. "Event Studies and the Analysis of Antitrust," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 229-245.
    3. Allain, Marie-Laure & Boyer, Marcel & Kotchoni, Rachidi & Ponssard, Jean-Pierre, 2015. "Are cartel fines optimal? Theory and evidence from the European Union," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 38-47.
    4. Joseph E. Harrington, 2005. "Optimal Cartel Pricing In The Presence Of An Antitrust Authority," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(1), pages 145-169, February.
    5. Gerlach, Heiko & Li, Junqian, 2024. "Collusion in the presence of antitrust prosecution: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 427-445.
    6. Brady, Una & M. Feinberg, Robert, 2000. "An examination of stock-price effects of EU merger control policy," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 885-900, August.
    7. Thorsten Lübbers, 2009. "Is Cartelisation Profitable? A Case Study of the Rhenish Westphalian Coal Syndicate, 1893-1913," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2009_09, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    8. Kai Hüschelrath & Nina Leheyda & Patrick Beschorner, 2010. "Assessing The Effects Of A Road-Surfacing Cartel In Switzerland," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 335-374.
    9. Günster, Andrea & van Dijk, Mathijs, 2016. "The impact of European antitrust policy: Evidence from the stock market," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 20-33.
    10. Barbara Baarsma & Ron Kemp & Rob Noll & Jo Seldeslachts, 2012. "Let’s Not Stick Together: Anticipation of Cartel and Merger Control in The Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 357-376, December.
    11. Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., 2004. "Cartel Pricing Dynamics in the Presence of an Antitrust Authority," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(4), pages 651-673, Winter.
    12. Luca Aguzzoni & Gregor Langus & Massimo Motta, 2013. "The Effect of EU Antitrust Investigations and Fines on a Firm's Valuation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 290-338, June.
    13. Atkas, Nihat & Bodt, Eric de & Roll, Richard, 2001. "Market Response to European Regulation," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt0qc9p8gf, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    14. Babina, Tania & Barkai, Simcha & Jeffers, Jessica & Karger, Ezra & Volkova, Ekaterina, 2023. "Antitrust Enforcement Increases Economic Activity," HEC Research Papers Series 1488, HEC Paris.
    15. Kalyn Coatney & Jesse Tack, 2014. "The Impacts of an Antitrust Investigation: A Case Study in Agriculture," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(4), pages 423-441, June.
    16. Stephen Davies & Franco Mariuzzo & Peter L. Ormosi, 2018. "Quantifying The Deterrent Effect Of Anticartel Enforcement," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(4), pages 1933-1949, October.
    17. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken, 2008. "The Effect of Mergers on Consumer Prices: Evidence from Five Selected Case Studies," NBER Working Papers 13859, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Carden, Robert & Leach, Sonia E. & Smith, Jeffrey S., 2008. "A market reaction to DOD contract delay -- Does the market reward poor performance," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 33-45.
    19. Katsoulacos, Yannis & Motchenkova, Evgenia & Ulph, David, 2015. "Penalizing cartels: The case for basing penalties on price overcharge," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 70-80.
    20. Marie-Laure Allain & Marcel Boyer & Jean-Pierre Ponssard & Rachidi Kotchoni, 2011. "The Determination of Optimal Fines in Cartel Cases - The Myth of Underdeterrence," CIRANO Working Papers 2011s-34, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy;

    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:ags:puaesp:28668. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dapurus.html .

    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.