METHODS FOR QUANTIFYING ANTITRUST DAMAGES: THE PASTA CARTEL IN ITALY

Giovanni Notaro

Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 2014, vol. 10, issue 1, 87-106

Abstract: This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the quantification of the damages caused by anticompetitive conduct by applying a number of empirical methods to the pasta cartel in Italy, which was discovered by the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (Italian Competition Authority, or AGCM) in 2007. These methods include the dummy variable approach, the dynamic treatment effects (DTE) method, and the so-called straight-line methods. The key results show that both the dummy variable and the DTE methods perform better than the straight-line methods. Moreover, the last should not be used when the underlying cost and demand drivers over the cartel period are substantially different from those prevailing before or after. The dummy variable approach and the DTE method provide very similar estimates of the cartel overcharge, though there is no reason to expect that this would always be the case. Finally, this article contributes to the ongoing debate on “optimal fines” and on the societal benefits of having a proper antitrust enforcement by showing that that the fines levied by the AGCM in this particular case were below “optimal” levels, and that the benefits from this intervention of the AGCM are roughly seven times its annual budget.

JEL-codes: K21 L41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/joclec/nht020 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:jcomle:v:10:y:2014:i:1:p:87-106.

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Competition Law and Economics is currently edited by Nicholas Economides, Amelia Fletcher, Michal Gal, Damien Geradin, Ioannis Lianos and Tommaso Valletti

More articles in Journal of Competition Law and Economics from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().