IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/38343.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A theory of antitrust enforcement game

Author

Listed:
  • Jellal, Mohamed
  • Souam, Said

Abstract

We analyze a situation where an antitrust authority delegates to an audit inspector the mission of gathering the sufficient information to condemn a cartel. The authority has two instruments at her disposal: rewarding the inspector with a proportion of the collected fine or providing him with information which enhances the probability of the success of the prosecution. More precisely, we explore the efficiency consequences of a contest between the audit inspector and the cartel. Both of them bid to win the contest by expending efforts. We show that the race issue depends positively on the financial incentives proposed to the inspector but the impact of an increase of the level of the fine, to be paid once an illegal agreement is detected, is ambiguous. Moreover, we show that the optimal combination of the two instruments consists in two regimes. When the marginal cost of providing the relevant information is relatively high, the antitrust authority equally shares the collected fine and does not provide the inspector with any information. Conversely, when this marginal cost is relatively small, the authority uses the two instruments. She has to provide him with the maximum level of information consistent with winning the contest with certainty

Suggested Citation

  • Jellal, Mohamed & Souam, Said, 2012. "A theory of antitrust enforcement game," MPRA Paper 38343, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:38343
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/38343/1/MPRA_paper_38343.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mookherjee, Dilip & Png, I P L, 1995. "Corruptible Law Enforcers: How Should They Be Compensated?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 145-159, January.
    2. Thierry Pénard & Saïd Souam, 2002. "Collusion et politique de la concurrence en information asymétrique," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 66, pages 209-233.
    3. Avinash Dixit, 2008. "Strategic Behavior in Contests," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Arye L. Hillman & Kai A. Konrad (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 1, pages 431-438, Springer.
    4. Arun S. Malik, 1990. "Avoidance, Screening and Optimum Enforcement," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(3), pages 341-353, Autumn.
    5. David P. Baron & David Besanko, 1984. "Regulation, Asymmetric Information, and Auditing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 447-470, Winter.
    6. Heyes, Anthony G., 1997. "Environmental Regulation by Private Contest," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 407-428, February.
    7. Souam, Said, 2001. "Optimal antitrust policy under different regimes of fines," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 1-26, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jellal, Mohamed & Souam, Said, 2014. "Incentives and optimal antitrust policy," MPRA Paper 57246, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mohamed Jellal & Saïd Souam, 2004. "Delegation, Incentives and Antitrust Enforcement," Working Papers 2004-41, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    3. Tim Friehe & Thomas J. Miceli, 2017. "On Punishment Severity and Crime Rates," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 19(2), pages 464-485.
    4. Marcel Boyer & Tracy R. Lewis & Wei Lin Liu, 2000. "Setting standards for credible compliance and law enforcement," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(2), pages 319-340, May.
    5. Haldun Evrenk & E. Zenginobuz, 2010. "Regulation through a revenue contest," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 99(3), pages 211-237, April.
    6. Astrid Gamba & Giovanni Immordino & Salvatore Piccolo, 2016. "Organized Crime and the Bright Side of Subversion of Law," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def039, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    7. Celik, Gorkem & Sayan, Serdar, 2005. "To Give In or Not To Give In To Bribery? Setting the Optimal Fines for Violations of Rules when the Enforcers are Likely to Ask for Bribes," Microeconomics.ca working papers celik-05-08-03-12-50-26, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 06 Aug 2008.
    8. Steven Shavell & A. Mitchell Polinsky, 2000. "The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 45-76, March.
    9. Hurley, Terrance M. & Shogren, Jason F., 1998. "Asymmetric information contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 645-665, November.
    10. Hiriart, Yolande & Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jerome, 2010. "The public management of risk: Separating ex ante and ex post monitors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1008-1019, December.
    11. Arguedas, Carmen & Rousseau, Sandra, 2012. "Learning about compliance under asymmetric information," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 55-73.
    12. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 2007. "The Theory of Public Enforcement of Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 403-454, Elsevier.
    13. Chiappinelli, Olga, 2020. "Political corruption in the execution of public contracts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 116-140.
    14. Eide, Erling & Rubin, Paul H. & Shepherd, Joanna M., 2006. "Economics of Crime," Foundations and Trends(R) in Microeconomics, now publishers, vol. 2(3), pages 205-279, December.
    15. Thierry Pénard & Saïd Souam, 2002. "Collusion et politique de la concurrence en information asymétrique," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 66, pages 209-233.
    16. Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jérôme & Hiriart, Yolande, 2005. "The Public Management of Environmental Risk: Separating Ex Ante and Ex Post Monitors," CEPR Discussion Papers 4992, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Tim Friehe, 2013. "The Role of Investment in Environmental Lobbying Contests," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 56(3), pages 337-352, November.
    18. Hurley, Terrance M. & Shogren, Jason F., 1998. "Effort levels in a Cournot Nash contest with asymmetric information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 195-210, June.
    19. Gorkem Celik & Serdar Sayan, 2008. "On the optimality of nonmaximal fines in the presence of corruptible law enforcers," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 12(3), pages 209-227, September.
    20. Anthony Heyes & Catherine Liston-Heyes, 2005. "Economies of scope and scale in green advocacy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(3), pages 423-436, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Antitrust Enforcement; Collusion; Moral Hazard; Contest;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:38343. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.