The deterrent effect of competition authorities’ work

(by Mike Walker^) In his post last month, Steve Davies bemoaned the lack of evidence on the magnitude of harm deterred by the activities of the Competition Agencies. He presented some estimates from research in CCP on cartel deterrence, concluding most strikingly: “On the most conservative of our estimates, more than half of all potential cartel harm never occurs, because it is deterred. This is very much a lower bound, and the proportion could be as high as 90%.”