Joe Chen

The impact of the corporate leniency program on cartel formation and the cartel price path

Previous research exploring the effect of corporate leniency programs has modelled the oligopoly stage game as a Prisoners?Dilemma. Using numerical analysis, we consider the Bertrand price game and allow the probability of detection and penalties to be sensitive to firms?prices. Consistent with earlier results, a maximal leniency program necessarily makes collusion more difficult. However, we also find that partial leniency programs - such as in the U.S. - can make collusion easier compared to offering no leniency. We also show that even if cartel formation is not deterred, a leniency program can reduce the prices charged by firms.

Life Insurance and Suicide: Asymmetric Information Revisited

Abstract This paper investigates the nexus between life insurance and suicide behavior by applying semiparametric instrumental variable regressions to OECD cross-country data from 1980 to 2002. The novelty of our analysis lies in the use of cross-country variations in the lengths of the suicide exemption period in policies and foreign market shares in life insurance industries as identifying instruments for life insurance demand. We find that, for the majority of observations, there exists a positive causality from life insurance demand to suicide. This result suggests the existence of adverse selection and moral hazards in life insurance markets in OECD countries.