Corporate Cartels as a Criminal Network

Florian Thierry-Coudon ()
Additional contact information
Florian Thierry-Coudon: CRED - Centre de Recherche en Economie et Droit - Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: Firms may belong to many cartels, resulting in interconnected networks of corporate cartels that share practices, strategies, and information. Consequently, each firm can be viewed as a node, and each cartel as the links between those nodes within a larger network of cartels. Using Graph Theory, we develop a model of collusive behavior within a network of cartels to examine how its organization affects their stability. Firms face a "centrality trade-off": the more cartels they belong to, the higher their profits, but the less stable each cartel is. We characterize one general network shape that maximizes cartel stability: the denser the network, the more stable the cartels. In other words, cartels are more resilient when firms participate in multiple overlapping cartels.

Keywords: Cartels; Network; Antitrust; Recidivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://univ-pantheon-assas.hal.science/hal-05327815v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://univ-pantheon-assas.hal.science/hal-05327815v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05327815

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().