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Economic Theory

Selected Works

Managerial Incentives in Cartels

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Strategic Delegation Improves Cartel Stability, Martijn Han Dec 2010

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 Dec 2010

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 Dec 2009

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 …