Buyers’ Cartels: Prevalence and Undercharges

This article supplements information on 24 U.S. domestic buyers’ cartels cited in a 2010 book by Blair & Harrison by assembling and analyzing a sample of 49 episodes of buyers’ cartels that have international membership or multijurisdictional price effects. It appears that such cartels comprise less than 8 percent of the total, that they are clustered in primary-products and services industries, that they employ bid rigging conduct to a greater extent than sellers’ cartels, and that un