The effectiveness of corporate leniency programs

The introduction of corporate leniency programs is a recent development in competition policy. Corporate leniency programs provide fine reductions to cartel participants that report their collusive behaviour to the antitrust authority. The leniency programs aim to reduce collusive activities. However, theoretical studies indicate that corporate leniency programs may have pro-collusive effects as well as anti-collusive effects. Most theoretical studies argue that a courageous leniency program is the optimal leniency program. An experimental study is proposed to test this theoretical claim. The experimental study of Hinloopen and Soetevent (2008) is extended with a courageous leniency program experiment.