This article examines price fixing and bid rigging by applying the theory of the economics of crime to explain the calculus of the individual decision maker in the firm. This approach departs somewhat from the traditional approach to investigations of collusion. The latter has emphasized market structure and firm interrelationships while it has ignored the characteristics of the firm itself. But analyses ignoring firm organizational and financial structure are incomplete insomuch as these factors are crucial to the incentives and costs that the decision maker confronts. This paper offers an alternative approach in which price-fixing and bid-rigging offenders' prominent characteristics apparently are mirrored in defendant firms and individuals that the Antitrust Division has prosecuted recentlv. Copyright 1989 Western Economic Association International.
ParadoxesA B S T R A C T Federal and state government efforts to improve the nation"s health focus particular attention on the necessity of increasing the numbers of physicians. Yet, evidence from several studies suggest weak linkages between health and the number of physicians. The present study surveys civilian health and the number of physicians during the period of national mobilization in the U.S. in the 1940's. This period, where low physician/population ratios prevailed for several years, is unique in recent history and provides a useful reference for current health policy. Reduced numbers of physicians are shown to have had a measurable negative impact on civilian health over the period.* The author would like to express gratitude to the Brookings Institution for support and to a referee for helpful suggestions.
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