Ben's Bash 2017

Cartels are among us. In recent years, companies have chosen to collude, rather an compete, in a wide array of markets including auto parts, chicken processing, eBooks, foreign exchange, shipping, and vitamins. Collusion has involved some of the leading companies in the world including Apple, Google, Sotheby's, Lufthansa, Samsung, Barclays, and DuPont. This lecture explores how cartels operate and what we have recently learned about them from cartelists who have cooperated with the authorities. It then examines recent policies designed to detect and shut down cartels, and to deter them from forming.

 

Joe Harrington is the Patrick T. Harker Professor in the Department of Business Economics & Public Policy at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is considered one of the world's leading authorities on collusion and cartels. His research has been presented before many competition authorities including those of Chile, European Union, Japan, South Africa, Spain, and the U.S., and he has keynote addresses at the annual meetings of the Chilean Economic Association and the German Economic Association. He has served as President of the Industrial Organization Society and co-editor at the RAND Journal of Economics and the International Journal of Industrial Organization. His books include The Theory of Collusion and Competition Policy, Games, Strategies, and Decision Making, and Economics of Regulation and Antitrust for which he is a co-author.