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Recent laboratory experiments support the popular view that the introduction of corporate leniency programs has significantly decreased cartel activity. The design of these repeated game experiments however is such that engaging in illegal price discussions is the only way for subjects to avoid the one-shot competitive equilibrium. Subjects in the experiment of this paper have multiple feasible Nash equilibrium strategies to avoid the competitive equilibrium. These strategies differ in the difficulty of the coordination problem they have to solve. The experimental results show that if the efforts of the antitrust authority and the leniency program are directed exclusively to the most straightforward collusive scheme, subjects manage to switch to a more intricate form of coordination. This shift from overt collusion to tacit collusion questions the acclaimed success of corporate leniency programs.

The number of cartels detected in the United States and in Europe has increased considerably since the introduction of corporate leniency programs in antitrust legislation. It cannot, however, be ruled out that this apparent success results in part from increased cartel activity. We explore the effects of corporate leniency programs on pricing and cartel activity by use of an experiment. We find that in the lab (i) fewer cartels are established when a leniency program is in place, and (ii) cartels that do exist are less successful in charging prices above the static Nash equilibrium price and have lower survival rates.

Where markets are insufficiently competitive, governments can intervene by auctioninglicenses to operate or by forcing divestitures. The Dutch government has doneexactly that, organizing auctions to redistribute tenancy rights for highway gasolinestations and forcing the divestiture of outlets of four majors. We evaluate this policyexperiment using panel data containing detailed price information. We find that anobligation to divest lowers prices by over 2% while the auctioning of licenses withoutsuch an obligation has no discernible effect. We find weak evidence for price effects onnearby competitors.

Each week, the Dutch Postcode Lottery (PCL) randomly selects a postal code, and distributes cash and a new BMW to lottery participants in that code. We study the effects of these shocks on lottery winners and their neighbors. Consistent with the life-cycle hypothesis, the effects on winners' consumption are largely confined to cars and other durables. Consistent with the theory of in-kind transfers, the vast majority of BMW winners liquidate their BMWs. We do, however, detect substantial social effects of lottery winnings: PCL nonparticipants who live next door to winners have significantly higher levels of car consumption than other nonparticipants. JEL: D14, D91, H23, H27