Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 03 October 2018 ; Examining Board: Prof. David K. Levine, EUI (Supervisor); Prof. Giacomo Calzolari, EUI; Prof. Juan-José Ganuza, UPF and Barcelona GSE; Prof. Gerard Llobet, CEMFI ; The aim of this thesis is to investigate cartels and the impact of competition policy from various angles. Chapter 1, joint with Joan-Ramon Borrell, José Manuel Ordóñez-de-Haro and Juan Luis Jiménez, analyzes the relationship between cartel life cycles and business cycles. We analyze the relationship between cartel startups/breakups and economic cycles using a dataset of cartels sanctioned by the European Commission. Results show that cartels are more likely to be formed when the business has evolved positively in the previous months and managers expect prices to decline, but that cartels also tend to breakup when the business has evolved positively. Upturns in firm-specific business cycles appear to cause cartel turnovers: existing cartels die while new ones are set up. Chapter 2 aims at obtaining a precise measure of how much firms benefit from collusion. I evaluate the causal effect of being a cartel member on the revenues and profits of cartelized firms, using comparable non-collusive firms as control group. A dataset of discovered cartel cases in Spain from 1990 to 2014 and an alternative dataset of firms' balance sheets are used. Results show that firms increase their revenues, on average, between 19% and 26% due to the collusive agreement, while no significant effect is found on profits. Estimations by cartel duration demonstrate that the members of long-lasting cartels not only increase their revenues (29%−50%), but also their profits more than two times. Further analysis shows that cartels that are profitable from the beginning tend to last longer and do not apply for Leniency Programs. Chapter 3, joint with Joan-Ramon Borrell, Juan Luis Jiménez and José Manuel Ordóñezde-Haro, investigates how Leniency Programs destabilize cartels. We study the effect of the Leniency Program on cartel duration, cartel fines and on the years of investigation using a difference-in-differences program evaluation approach. Cartel cases discovered by the European Commission and the Spanish Competition Authority are analyzed. Results show a short-run effect of the Leniency Program: the detected cartels have longer duration than the ones in the control group. In the long-run, the program decreases cartel duration. On the other hand, no significant effect is found on fines, while the duration of the investigation decreases significantly around 0.8-1.3 years.

In this paper we use a novel approach to address issues of endogeneity in estimating a causal effect of leverage on risk taking by banks. Using data on local bank office deposits and local unemployment we construct an instrument to use in a regression of leverage on a measure of risk taking constructed from new issuance of loans. The results (i.) confirm that due to limited liability banks increase their risk taking after an exogenous increase in leverage, and (ii.) that an increase in deposit supply has a direct positive effect on risk taking by banks. ; The ADEMU Working Paper Series is being supported by the European Commission Horizon 2020 European Union funding for Research & Innovation, grant agreement No 649396.