Private enforcement, corruption, and antitrust design

Peter Grajzl and Andrzej Baniak

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2018, vol. 46, issue 1, 284-307

Abstract: We examine how the rationale for enabling versus precluding private antitrust enforcement depends on whether antitrust enforcement is corruption-free or plagued by corruption. Corruption in courts affects the incentives to bring forth private antitrust lawsuits. This, in turn, along with corruption in antitrust agency enforcement, alters the incentives to commit antitrust violations. The social welfare effect of enabling private antitrust enforcement in the presence of corruption depends on whether corrupt officials in the ensuing bribery contests favor a particular firm and if so which one and to what extent. Under some circumstances, corruption actually increases the social desirability of private antitrust enforcement relative to the no-corruption scenario. Our analysis highlights that the effects of a given legal arrangement for antitrust enforcement critically depend on the corruption environment and, thus, that the appropriate design of antitrust institutions is context-specific.

Keywords: Antitrust; Corruption; Private enforcement; Public enforcement; Institutional design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 K21 L40 P51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596717300689
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Private Enforcement, Corruption, and Antitrust Design (2015)
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:eee:jcecon:v:46:y:2018:i:1:p:284-307

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2017.08.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Comparative Economics is currently edited by D. Berkowitz and G. Roland

More articles in Journal of Comparative Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().