Is Amnesty Plus More Successful in Fighting Multimarket Cartels? An Exploratory Analysis

This experiment shows how different levels of fines in three antitrust policies-no leniency (NL), standard leniency (LP), and amnesty plus (AP)-can deter multimarket cartels. With a low fine, AP significantly increases multimarket cartels and leads to higher prices. With a high fine, it has the same effect on collusion as do other policies. With regard to one-market cartels, AP decreases cartel stability relative to LP. With a high fine, it leads to more reporting than does LP, before any investigation and after a first cartel conviction. Higher fines also lead to higher prices in NL and LP, but not higher than in AP.