Leniency Programs in Antitrust: Practice vs Theory

Evgenia Motchenkova & Giancarlo Spagnolo – 

There are various reasons that may explain why the designs of the EU and U.S. leniency programs and damage claims differ. In this note we discuss the welfare and deterrence implications of both designs as well as costs associated with each of the designs. We also show that there are substantial gaps between the design implied by economic theory and the way the main antitrust policy instruments are implemented in practice. The analysis im