Leniency experiments: an evaluation of external validity

Yui Law, Sinchit Lai, Ning Liu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

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Abstract

Integrating and cross-comparing the findings of existing leniency experiments, this paper highlights multiple important experimental phenomena related to the effectiveness of leniency. The information extracted from existing leniency experiments provides useful guidelines for policy-making. In addition, this paper shows that auxiliary experimental settings may subtly influence the experimental results. Importantly, this paper explains that external validity issues are not trivial for the inferences of leniency experiments. Overlooking these external validity issues may lead to underestimation or overestimation of the effectiveness of leniency. Thus, this paper suggests that the interpretation of leniency experiments’ findings and policy recommendations should be based on relevant prior knowledge from other fields, e.g., economics, law, and psychology, as well as the theoretical and empirical studies in the field of leniency. Moreover, future leniency experiments can further enrich the understanding of this topic if existing external validity issues are addressed.

© The Author(s) 2025
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)19–76
Number of pages58
JournalEuropean Journal of Law and Economics
Volume59
Issue number1
Online published24 Feb 2025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2025

Funding

This research is funded by the Research Grants Committee of the Hong Kong SAR Government (project Number 21605022 obtained by Professor LAI Sin Chit Martin).

Research Keywords

  • Competition law
  • leniency program
  • economic experiment
  • research method
  • external validity

Publisher's Copyright Statement

  • This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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