17 research outputs found
Estimating damages from price-fixing: the value of transaction data
We use a unique private data set of about 340,000 invoice positions from 36 smaller and
larger customers of German cement producers to study the value of such transaction data for
an estimation of cartel damages. In particular, we investigate, first, how structural break
analysis can be used to identify the exact end of the cartel agreement and, second, how an
application of before-and-after approaches to estimate the price overcharge can benefit from
such rich data sets. We conclude that transaction data allows such a detailed assessment of the
cartel and its impact on direct customers that its regular application in private antitrust cases is
desired as long as data collection and preparation procedures are not prohibitively expensive