Over kwaliteit

1
Price-fixing Overcharges Focus on Europe by John
M. Connor ENCORE Annual Conference Amsterdam,
April 14, 2005 Discussion by Maarten Pieter
Schinkel University of Amsterdam and ACLE
2
Key Findings

• The average overcharge is very high
• Mean is about 50 (including zeros)
• Medians between 20-40 (US lt global lt EU)
• Slight downward trends reflecting enforcement
  effects
• US, DOJ end of 80s (Ghosal, 2005)
• EU, DG COMP end of 90s (Schinkel et al., 2004)
• Present remedies are impotent (30-35 lower
  limit)
• All types of collusion hurt about the same
• Estimation methods do not significantly differ in
  quality

3
Some Observations Methodology

• What classifies as a cartel?
• Quality of the sources very heterogeneous
• Limited private damages litigation (more precise)
• Found-out-fools-dilemma
• Underestimate tip of the iceberg
• Overestimate smarter ones set lower overcharges

4
Some Observations Analysis

• Monopoly overcharge linear case
• Enforcement effects (detection rather than
  sanctions)
• No discrimination between estimation methods
• International cartels and outside competition
• WTO/UN competition law enforcement

5
Relevance for Fining Guidelines

• Ancient, not-guilty, zero overcharge and export
  cartels
• Possible to fine too harshly (not Becker)
• Sales-based fine may give perverse incentives
• Deadweight losses and spread hurt
• Posnerian fine (Coase-like)
• Proper damages estimates

6
Concluding Remarks

• Impressive body of work important
• Need to rethink sentencing guidelines worldwide
• Remedies need to be carefully tailored
• We should be careful with aggregates
• There may be more effective sanctions (CEO
  targeted)