International antitrust enforcement and multi-market contact

Arbeitspapier

This paper analyzes international antitrust enforcement when multinational firms operate in several markets with antitrust authorities in each market. We are concerned with how the sustainability of collusion in one local market is affected by the existence of collusion in other markets when they are linked by demand relationships. The interdependence of collusion sustainability across markets leads to potential externalities in antitrust enforcement across jurisdictions. As a result, cartel prosecution can have a domino effect with the desistance of one cartel triggering the internal break-up of the cartel in the adjacent market. We further find that the equilibrium in antitrust authorities' enforcement decisions may exhibit non-linearity due to a free-rider problem as the global economy is more integrated. We also analyze the equilibrium antitrust enforcement and compare it with the globally optimal antitrust enforcement policy.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 2599

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: Perfect Competition ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
• Subject: Collusion ; antitrust enforcement ; multi-market contact ; Konzentrationspolitik ; Wettbewerbspolitik ; International ; Nationalstaat ; Multinationales Unternehmen ; Gleichgewichtstheorie ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Choi, Jay Pil ; Gerlach, Heiko A.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/26644
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET