Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/204738 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
SITE Working Paper No. 27
Publisher: 
Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), Stockholm
Abstract: 
The EU Leniency Programme (LP) aims to encourage the dissolution of existing cartels and the deterrence of future cartels, through spontaneous reporting and/or significant cooperation by cartel members during an investigation. However, the European Commission guidelines are rather vague in terms of the factors that influence the granting and scale of fine reductions. As expected, the results shown that the first reporting or cooperating firm receives generous fine reductions. More importantly, there is some evidence that firms can "learn how to play the leniency game", either learning how to cheat or how to report, as the reductions given to multiple o ffenders (and their cartel partners) are substantially higher. These results have an ambiguous impact on firms' incentives and major implications for policy making.
Subjects: 
Cartels
competition policy
Leniency Programme
self-reporting
JEL: 
K21
K42
L40
L51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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