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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Industrial Organization
Cartelization Through Buyer Groups, Chris Doyle, Martijn Han
Cartelization Through Buyer Groups, Chris Doyle, Martijn Han
Martijn A. Han
Retailers may enjoy stable cartel rents in their output market through the formation of a buyer group in their input market. A buyer group allows retailers to commit credibly to increased input prices, which serve to reduce combined final output to the monopoly level; increased input costs are then refunded from suppliers to retailers through slotting allowances or rebates. The stability of such an ‘implied cartel’ depends on the retailers’ incentives to source their inputs secretly from a supplier outside of the buyer group arrangement at lower input prices. Cheating is limited if retailers sign exclusive dealing or minimum purchase …
Strategic Delegation Improves Cartel Stability, Martijn Han
Strategic Delegation Improves Cartel Stability, Martijn Han
Martijn A. Han
Fershtman and Judd (1987) and Sklivas (1987) show that strategic delegation reduces firm profits in the one-shot Cournot game. Allowing for infinitely repeated interaction, strategic delegation can increase firm profits as it improves cartel stability.
Short-Term Managerial Contracts And Cartels, Martijn Han
Short-Term Managerial Contracts And Cartels, Martijn Han
Martijn A. Han
This paper shows how a series of commonly observed short-term CEO employment contracts can improve cartel stability compared to a long-term employment contract. When a manager's short-term appointment is renewed if and only if the firm hits a certain profit target, then (i) defection from collusion results in superior firm performance, thus reducing the chance of being fired, while (ii) future punishment results in inferior firm performance, thus increasing the chance of being fired in the future. The introduction of this re-employment tradeoff intertwines with the usual monetary tradeoff and can improve cartel stability. Studying the impact of fixed versus …
Monitoring Managers Through Corporate Compliance Programs, Charles Angelucci, Martijn Han
Monitoring Managers Through Corporate Compliance Programs, Charles Angelucci, Martijn Han
Martijn A. Han
Compliance programs entail monitoring of employees' behavior with the claimed objective of fighting corporate crime. (Competition) Authorities promote such intra-firm monitoring. In a three-tier hierarchy model, authority-shareholder-manager, we study the impact of monitoring through a compliance program on contracting within the firm and the authority's optimal sanctions and leniency policy. We find that compliance programs are beneficial in the fight against corporate crime if and only if the managerial sanction is low. Moreover, when the shareholder blows the whistle, the authority optimally grants partial corporate leniency, while not granting individual leniency to the involved employees. Conversely, when the employee blows …
The Overcharge As A Measure For Antitrust Damages, Martijn Han, Maarten Pieter Schinkel, Jan Tuinstra
The Overcharge As A Measure For Antitrust Damages, Martijn Han, Maarten Pieter Schinkel, Jan Tuinstra
Martijn A. Han
Victims of antitrust violations can recover damages in court. Yet, the quantification of antitrust damages and to whom they accrue is often complex. An illegal price increase somewhere in the chain of production percolates through to the other layers in a ripple of partial pass-ons. The resulting reductions in sales and input demands lead to additional harm to both downstream (in)direct purchasers and upstream suppliers. Nevertheless, U.S. civil antitrust litigation is almost exclusively concerned with direct purchaser claims for (treble) damages calculated on the basis of the overcharge. Similar best practice rules are emerging in Europe. In this paper, we …