Econometric tests to detect bid-rigging cartels: does it work?

David Imhof

No 483, FSES Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland

Abstract: This paper tests how well the method proposed by Bajari and Ye (2003) performs to detect bidrigging cartels. In the case investigated in this paper, the bid-rigging cartel rigged all contracts during the collusive period, and all firms participated to the bid-rigging cartel. The two econometric tests constructed by Bajari and Ye (2003) produce a high number of false negative results: the tests do not reject the null hypothesis of competition, although they should have rejected it. A robustness analysis replicates the econometric tests on two different sub-samples, composed solely by cover bids. On the first sub-sample, both tests produce again a high number of false negative results. However, on the second sub-sample, one test performs better to detect the bidrigging cartel. The paper interprets these results, discusses alternative methods, and concludes with recommendations for competition agencies.

Keywords: Bid rigging; Detection methods; Screens; Conditional independence test; Exchangeability test (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C00 C40 D22 D40 K40 L40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2017-06-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ecm and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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