Journal ArticleDOI
Litigation Settlement and Collusion
TLDR
In this paper, the authors show that the threat of litigation and the possibility of settlement can dramatically affect ex ante competition in the relevant market, and that the settlement process provides a legal mechanism for the exchange of side-payments, while the possible of a court decision provides the plaintiff with a credible threat against the defendant so as to avert cheating.Abstract:
Private enforcement of regulatory policy is a significant feature of many government-sponsored contests, such as procurements. Although private enforcement is supposed to promote social welfare, we show that competitors can use it to achieve collusive outcomes. In a noncooperative duopoly setting, we show that the threat of litigation, and the possibility of settlement can dramatically affect ex ante competition in the relevant market. Essentially, the settlement process provides a legal mechanism for the exchange of side-payments, while the possibility of a court decision provides the plaintiff with a credible threat against the defendant so as to avert cheating. The result does not require repeated play, ex ante contracts, or other commitment devices. In the federal procurement context, we show that our results are robust to alterations in the court remedy, bargaining power of the litigants, and many other factors.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Leniency Programs and Cartel Prosecution
Michele Polo,Massimo Motta +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the enforcement of competition policy against collusion under leniency programs, which give reduced fines to firms revealing information to the Antitrust Authority, was studied, and the optimal policy under alternative rules and with homogeneous and heterogeneous cartels was analyzed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Leniency programs and cartel prosecution
Massimo Motta,Michele Polo +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the enforcement of competition policy against collusion under leniency programs, which give reduced fines to firms that reveal information to the Antitrust Authority. But these programs may also induce collusion, since they decrease the expected cost of misbehaviour.
Journal ArticleDOI
Litigation and Settlement in Patent Infringement Cases
Claude Crampes,Corinne Langinier +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate how intensive the monitoring effort should be and how it will influence the entry decision of a patent holder in a simultaneous game, regardless who plays first.
Book ChapterDOI
Chapter 4 Litigation
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors survey the academic literature on the economics of litigation and synthesize its main themes, including the following: under what conditions will someone decide to file suit, what determines how much is spent on a lawsuit, when do cases settle out of court, and normative issues.
ReportDOI
Third-Party Opportunism and the Nature of Public Contracts
TL;DR: The lack of flexibility in public procurement design and implementation reflects public agents' political risk adaptation to limit hazards from opportunistic third parties while externalizing the associated adaptation costs to the public at large.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
How to License Intangible Property
Michael L. Katz,Carl Shapiro +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the optimal licensing strategy of a research lab selling to firms who are product market competitors is examined, and the authors show that demands are interdependent and hence the standard price mechanism is not the profit-maximizing licensing strategy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Why are so many antidumping petitions withdrawn
TL;DR: The number of antidumping petitions initiated has increased dramatically in recent years as discussed by the authors, but only one-third of the antidumping cases actually result in dumping duties being levied, while nearly half of the cases are withdrawn or are voluntarily terminated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Auction design and favoritism
Jean-Jacques Laffont,Jean Tirole +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that in the absence of favoritism, quality differentials among firms are more likely to be ignored, if the auction designer has imperfect information about the firm's costs.
Journal ArticleDOI
Bertrand competition with subcontracting
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how the possibility of subsequently subcontracting production to each other influences rivals' initial competition for a contract or a market as a two-stage game.
Posted Content
Procurement and Public Management
TL;DR: Using federal procurement of computer systems, the author shows the effects of practices designed to prevent collusion between vendors and officials as mentioned in this paper, and shows the effect of these practices on the performance of the system.