Plus Factors and Agreement in Antitrust Law

Authors

William E. Kovacic, George Washington University Law SchoolFollow
Robert C. Marshall, Pennsylvania State University
Leslie M. Marx, Duke University
Halbert L. White, University of California, San Diego

Abstract

Plus factors are economic actions and outcomes, above and beyond parallel conduct by oligopolistic firms, that are largely inconsistent with unilateral conduct but largely consistent with explicitly coordinated action. Possible plus factors are typically enumerated without any attempt to distinguish them in terms of a meaningful economic categorization or in terms of their probative strength for inferring collusion. In this Article, we provide a taxonomy for plus factors as well as a methodology for ranking plus factors in terms of their strength for inferring explicit collusion, the strongest of which are referred to as "super plus factors."

Recommended Citation

William E. Kovacic, Robert C. Marshall, Leslie M. Marx & Halbert L. White, Plus Factors and Agreement in Antitrust Law, 110 Mich. L. Rev. 393 (2011).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol110/iss3/1