What Do Legal Cartels Tell us about Illegal Ones?

Economists and policy analysts know very little about the conditions under which cartels are formed in differing legal environments, how they behave against outsiders, how they behave against deviating insiders, and react to changes in the economic environment. In this project we wish to analyse these aspects empirically using data on legal and illegal cartels, and closely connect to that, theoretically. A particular focus is on comparing empirically, in specific sectors, the behaviour of legal cartels formed in countries with permissive legal environments, to that of illegal cartels formed - and detected – in countries with rigid policy regimes.

Duration: April 2013 - September 2014

• Matthias Hunold, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Department Competition and Regulation Research Group
• Juniorprof. Dr. Kai Hüschelrath, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Department Competition and Regulation Research Group
• Ulrich Laitenberger, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Department Competition and Regulation Research Group
• Dr. Georg Licht, ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Department of Industrial Economics and International Management
• Prof. Philipp Schmidt-Dengler, PhD, University of Mannheim and ZEW
• Prof. Konrad Stahl, PhD, University of Mannheim and ZEW
• Nikolaus Fink, Johannes Kepler University of Linz and WiFo Vienna
• Prof. Dr. Christine Zulehner, Johannes Kepler University of Linz
• Prof. Ari Hyytinen, PhD, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
• Prof. Otto Toivanen, PhD, Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven)
• Prof. Frode Steen, PhD, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen
• Prof. Lars Persson, PhD, IFN, Stockholm
• Joachim Tåg, PhD, IFN, Stockholm
• Prof. David Genesove, PhD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem