An Anatomy of Cartel Contracts

Abstract

We study the contracts of 898 legal Finnish cartels. Cartels that exclusively allocate markets, either geographically or in the product/production space, are dominant in manufacturing. They are often bilateral and include a vertical dimension. Structural industry characteristics predict the type of a cartel; e.g., consistent with theory, quota cartels are more common in manufacturing and when buyers are primarily industrial. The contracts of quota cartels include more (governance) clauses. Pure pricing cartels are the dominant cartel type in non‐manufacturing and are more common when demand is primarily from retail buyers. Pricing cartels are larger than other types of cartels.