Abstract: This article examines optimal policy toward coordinated oligopolistic price elevation.
First, it analyzes the social welfare implications of enforcement, elaborating the value of
deterrence and the nature of possible chilling effects. Then, it explores a variety of means of
detection, with particular attention to the sorts of errors that may arise under each. Finally, it
examines the level and type of sanctions that should be employed. It emerges that there is
remarkably little overlap in content between the present investigation and prior legal policy work
on the subject. Some central issues have been ignored while particular resolutions of others have
been taken for granted, thereby indicating the need for wholesale reassessment.