ROBERT H. LANDE, University of Baltimore - School of Law
Email: rothland@erols.com
JOHN M. CONNOR, Purdue University
Email: jconnor@purdue.edu

This chapter examines how high cartels raise prices on average and what this should mean for the current criminal fine levels in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. We utilize two distinct data sets (economic and other studies, and verdicts in final cartel cases) and find that cartels have caused average overcharges in the range of 31 to 49 percent and median overcharges in the range of 22 to 25 percent of affected commerce. We conclude that the current Sentencing Commission presumption that cartels overcharge on average by 10 percent is much too low, and the current levels of cartel penalties should be increased significantly.

WIM VOERMANS, University of Leiden - Faculty of Law
Email: w.j.m.voermans@law.leidenuniv.nl

Cutting red tape is topical in Dutch debates on legislative politics ever since the beginning of the nineteen nineties, but did - since 2003 - gain impetus in the political arena as the combined consequence of the Regulatory reform policies of the Balkenende II-IV administrations (2003-2010) to innovate the Dutch economy and efforts to meet with the European Lisbon Agenda. The general aim of these policies is to simplify the regulatory environment by cutting red tape and making law more practicable, thus fostering economic growth. The new elements of these policies - compared to the recent pre-2000 past - are the focus on precise definition of regulatory administrative burden, the detailed quantification thereof, and the prefixed reduction targets. With these elements the Dutch reform policy aligns with - OECD-inspired - initiatives throughout Europe aiming at the reduction of red tape caused by legislation. Arguably these policies have met with some success; a 20% red tape reduction was achieved by the end of 2007. Encouraged by this success the present Balkenende administration has raised the stakes by fixing a new, additional, reduction target of 25%. This contribution will focus on critical success factors for the Dutch reform policies and overall effects of these policies for legislation, its implementation and enforcement. It does so from a predominantly legal point of view. The paper questions how Dutch success rates of Better regulation are affected by tough political choices (is Better regulation instrumental to tough political choices, or are the best results yielded by avoiding political choices?). A second critical success factor discussed is the question whether the law of diminishing returns will apply to the most recent episode of Dutch reform policies The contribution concludes with the hypothesis of the Sisyphus paradox, according to which risk management (Better Regulation Commission 2006) and legal protection on the one hand and the wish for business enabling legislation on the other hand, make for a perpetual cycle resulting in the constant production of red tape and the parallel need to reduce them.

ROBERT SEAMANS, University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business
Email: seamans@haas.berkeley.edu

This paper links empirical literature on the use of price as an entry deterring mechanism with literature on the effect of multi-market contact on competition. The analysis uses a dataset of cable TV system prices to provide evidence that incumbent cable TV firms use price to deter entry by telecom overbuilders as well as cities with municipal utilities. There is also some evidence that multi-market contact with telecom overbuilders results in lower prices. However, there is no evidence that incumbents use price to deter cable overbuilders. In addition to linking entry deterrence with multi-market contact, this study has two other unique features. First, it establishes entry deterrence using two techniques, one of which relies on theory by Ellison and Ellison (2008) on non-monotonic price decreases in response to entry probability. Second, it uses detailed price and channel data at the service tier level.

TYRONE CARLIN, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: tyrone.carlin@gsm.mq.edu.au
LIEN THI PHAM, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: lienpt@hotmail.com
HA VIET HOANG, Macquarie University
Email: hoangvietha@hotmail.com

The main purpose of this paper is to examine determinants of the "level" and the "rate" of technical efficiency by firstly exploring a firm-level data set of 4600 enterprises in the industrial sector of Vietnam during transition from 2001-2005. The empirical results reveal a strong ownership impact on efficiency. Private ownership exhibits the highest robustness and state ownership, on the other hand, exhibits the lowest robustness to both the "level" and the "rate" of technical efficiency. Firms have gained efficiency from implementing higher levels of capital intensity, operating in larger business of scales, competing in high competitive industries and locating in high-income regions. The paper also suggests policy implication from the empirical findings.

MICHAEL S. PROVENZALE, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: michael.provenzale@lddkr.com

The popularity of Indian gaming has boomed in recent years, bringing casinos to Americans throughout the country and resulting in great financial gains to those tribes who have been able to capitalize on the trend. Over the last decade tribal gaming revenue in the United States has increased four-fold - from just over six billion dollars in 1996 to an incredible twenty-five billion dollars in 2006. As of 2006, gaming was occurring at three hundred eighty-seven locations and in twenty-nine states, stretching from Florida to Alaska. This growth in revenue, in addition to the moral issues that surround gambling of any type, have led and surely will lead in the future to conflicts between Indian tribes and states wishing to regulate gaming and to get their hands on a piece of the ever-enlarging pie.

This conflict played out first in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, as California attempted to regulate high-stakes bingo games and prohibit poker games being conducted on the tribe's reservations within the state. After an analysis of both state and federal law, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that "[s]tate regulation would impermissibly infringe on tribal government," and thus the state could not regulate any gaming on tribal land. The result of the case thereby "cleared the way for the multimillion-dollar betting parlors on Indian Land" and prompted Congress to respond with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), allowing states back into the picture. This comment will analyze IGRA and the surrounding issues, which were further complicated by the Supreme Court in Seminole Tribe v. Florida, and have, at least for now, culminated in Texas v. U.S.