Are Treble Damages Neutral? Sequential Equilibrium and Private Antitrust Enforcement
构建了一个私人反垄断执法的序贯均衡模型，消费者在不完全信息下从企业定价推断卡特尔成本，发现足够高的损害赔偿倍数能有效提升社会福利。
A sequential equilibrium model of private antitrust enforcement is presented. Consumers have incomplete information about cartel costs and cannot accurately estimate a priori the damage recovery from an antitrust action. Consumers are able to infer cartel costs from the equilibrium pricing strategy of firms. The universal divinity criterion is used to characterize the sequential equilibrium. It is shown that, for a sufficiently large damage multiple, antitrust enforcement effectively increases social welfare. Copyright 1990 by American Economic Association.