Working Paper Breaking up is Hard to Do: Determinants of Cartel Duration Margaret C. Levenstein Stephen M. Ross School of Business University of Michigan Valerie Y. Suslow Stephen M. Ross School of Business University of Michigan Ross School of Business Working Paper Working Paper No. 1150 September 2010 This work cannot be used without the author's permission. This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Sciences Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1676968 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Determinants of Cartel Duration Margaret C. Levenstein Valerie Y. Suslow* September 2010 Forthcoming, Journal of Law and Economics * Margaret Levenstein is Executive Director of the Michigan Census Research Data Center; Research Scientist, Institute for Social Research; and Adjunct Professor, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan (
[email protected]). Valerie Suslow is Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan (
[email protected]). We thank Charlie Brown, John Connor, Joseph Harrington, Francine Lafontaine, Kirtikumar Mehta, Maarten Pieter Schinkel, and Wesley Wilson for helpful comments. We also thank seminar participants at the International Industrial Organization Conference, Ross School of Business, University of East Anglia, and Barnard College. Excellent research assistance was provided by S. Aneeqa Aqeel, Sara LaLumia, and Nathan Wilson. ABSTRACT We estimate the impact of cartel organizational features, as well as macroeconomic fluctuations and industry structure, on cartel duration using a dataset of contemporary international cartels. We estimate a proportional hazards model with competing risks, distinguishing factors which increase the risk of “death by antitrust” from those that affect “natural death,” including defection, dissension or entry.