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Overcharge
Overcharge is an economic term that refers to the difference between an observed market price and a price that would have been observed in the absence of collusion. The latter is often called a "but-for price" or a competitive "benchmark price". When collusion is not in use, such as by privately owned businesses, overcharge is considered as a markup of the observed market price for the sole profit of the business and in some states is considered illegal, similar to profiteering and price gouging. An overcharge may be expressed as a mark-up on the benchmark price, or it may be divided by the observed market price. When the benchmark price is equal to the marginal cost of production, as it is in perfect competition, then ratio of the overcharge to market price is the Lerner Index of market power. When the overcharge is multiplied by the quantity purchased, it becomes the monetary injury or damages incurred by a buyer of goods sold by a cartel. The word is also used (as verb and n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cartel
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Most jurisdictions consider it anti-competitive behavior and have outlawed such practices. Cartel behavior includes price fixing, bid rigging, and reductions in output. The doctrine in economics that analyzes cartels is cartel theory. Cartels are distinguished from other forms of collusion or anti-competitive organization such as corporate mergers. Etymology The word ''cartel'' comes from the Italian word '' cartello'', which means a "leaf of paper" or "placard", and is itself derived from the Latin ''charta'' meaning "card". The Italian word became ''cartel'' in Middle French, which was borrowed into English. In English, the word was originally used for a written agreement between warring nations to regulate the treatment and exchange of p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collusion
Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to attain objectives forbidden by law; for example, by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. It is an agreement among firms or individuals to divide a market, set prices, limit production or limit opportunities. It can involve "unions, wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties". In legal terms, all acts effected by collusion are considered void. Definition In the study of economics and market competition, collusion takes place within an industry when rival companies cooperate for their mutual benefit. Conspiracy usually involves an agreement between two or more sellers to take action to suppress competition between sellers in the market. Because competition among ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Profiteering (business)
Profiteering is a pejorative term for the act of making a profit by methods considered unethical. Overview Business owners may be accused of profiteering when they raise prices during an emergency ( especially a war). The term is also applied to businesses that play on political corruption to obtain government contracts. Some types of profiteering are illegal, such as price fixing syndicates, for example on fuel subsidies (see '' British Airways price-fixing allegations''), and other anti-competitive behaviour. Some are restricted by industry codes of conduct, e.g. aggressive marketing of products in the Third World such as baby milk (see ''Nestlé boycott''). Types of profiteering *Price fixing *Price gouging *War profiteering Laws Profiteering is illegal in several countries, including but not limited to: *UK: Chapter 1 of the Competition Act 1998 *Germany§ 291 StGB(Criminal Code) – up to 10 years' jail maximum penalty *Austria§ 154 StGB– up to 5 years' jail maximum pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Price Gouging
Price gouging is a pejorative term used to describe the situation when a seller increases the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock. This term is commonly used to describe price increases of basic necessities after natural disasters. In legal usage, price gouging is the name of a crime that applies in some jurisdictions of the United States during civil emergencies. In less precise usage, the term can also be used to refer to profits obtained by practices inconsistent with a competitive free market, or to windfall profits. Price gouging is considered by some to be exploitative and unethical. The term is similar to profiteering but can be distinguished by being short-term and localized and by being restricted to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and equipment needed to preserve life and property. In jurisdictions where there is no such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marginal Cost
In economics, the marginal cost is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is incremented, the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it refers to the rate of change of total cost as output is increased by an infinitesimal amount. As Figure 1 shows, the marginal cost is measured in dollars per unit, whereas total cost is in dollars, and the marginal cost is the slope of the total cost, the rate at which it increases with output. Marginal cost is different from average cost, which is the total cost divided by the number of units produced. At each level of production and time period being considered, marginal cost includes all costs that vary with the level of production, whereas costs that do not vary with production are fixed. For example, the marginal cost of producing an automobile will include the costs of labor and parts needed for the additional automobile but not the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfect Competition
In economics, specifically general equilibrium theory, a perfect market, also known as an atomistic market, is defined by several idealizing conditions, collectively called perfect competition, or atomistic competition. In Economic model, theoretical models where conditions of perfect competition hold, it has been demonstrated that a Market (economics), market will reach an Economic equilibrium, equilibrium in which the quantity supplied for every Goods and services, product or service, including Workforce, labor, equals the quantity demanded at the current price. This equilibrium would be a Pareto optimum. Perfect competition provides both allocative efficiency and productive efficiency: * Such markets are ''allocatively efficient'', as output will always occur where marginal cost is equal to average revenue i.e. price (MC = AR). In perfect competition, any Profit maximization, profit-maximizing producer faces a market price equal to its marginal cost (P = MC). This implies that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lerner Index
The Lerner index, formalized in 1934 by British economist of Russian origin Abba Lerner, is a measure of a firm's market power. Definition The Lerner index is defined by: L=\frac where P is the market price set by the firm and MC is the firm's marginal cost. The index ranges from 0 to 1. A perfectly competitive firm charges P = MC, L = 0; such a firm has no market power. An oligopolist or monopolist charges P > MC, so its index is L > 0, but the extent of its markup depends on the elasticity (the price-sensitivity) of demand and strategic interaction with competing firms. The index rises to 1 if the firm has MC = 0. The following factors affect the value of the Lerner index: * the price elasticity of demand for goods produced by the company — the smaller the fluctuations in demand under the influence of prices, the smaller the elasticity and the greater the value of L; * the interaction with competitors — the more of them and the larger their size, the less the company's a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Power
In economics, market power refers to the ability of a firm to influence the price at which it sells a product or service by manipulating either the supply or demand of the product or service to increase economic profit. In other words, market power occurs if a firm does not face a perfectly elastic demand curve and can set its price (P) above marginal cost (MC) without losing revenue.Syverson, C. (2019). Macroeconomics and Market Power. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(3), 23-43. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.3.23 This indicates that the magnitude of market power is associated with the gap between P and MC at a firm's profit maximising level of output. Such propensities contradict perfectly competitive markets, where market participants have no market power, P = MC and firms earn zero economic profit. Market participants in perfectly competitive markets are consequently referred to as 'price takers', whereas market participants that exhibit market power are referred to as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages. Compensatory damages are further categorized into special damages, which are economic losses such as loss of earnings, property damage and medical expenses, and general damages, which are non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and emotional distress. Rather than being compensatory, at common law damages may instead be nominal, contemptuous or exemplary. History Among the Saxons, a monetary value called a ''weregild'' was assigned to every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code. If property was stolen or someone was injured or killed, the guilty person had to pay the wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overcharging (law)
Overcharging, in law, refers to a prosecutorial practice that involves "tacking on" additional charges that the prosecutor knows he cannot prove. It is used to put the prosecutor in a better plea bargaining position. The term has been defined in different ways. Alschuler writes that "to prosecutors, overcharging is accusing the defendant of a crime of which he is clearly innocent to induce a plea to the 'proper' crime. Defense counsel identify two types of overcharging. 'Horizontal' overcharging is the unreasonable multiplying of accusations against a single defendant. He may be either charged with a separate offense for every technical criminal transaction in which he participated, or the prosecutor may fragment a single criminal transaction into numerous component offenses. 'Vertical' overcharging is charging a single offense at a higher level than the circumstances of the case seem to warrant." Vertical overcharging is deemed to be the more abusive of the two practices. In defense ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
District Attorney
In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a local government area, typically a county or a group of counties. The exact name and scope of the office varies by state. Alternative titles for the office include county attorney, solicitor, or county prosecutor. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case against an individual suspected of breaking the law, initiating and directing further criminal investigations, guiding and recommending the sentencing of offenders, and are the only attorneys allowed to participate in grand jury proceedings. The prosecutors decide what criminal charges to bring, and when and where a person will answer to those charges. In carrying out their duties, prosecutors have the authority to investigate persons, grant immunity to witnes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plea Bargaining
A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or '' nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence. A plea bargain allows both parties to avoid a lengthy criminal trial and may allow criminal defendants to avoid the risk of conviction at trial on a more serious charge. For example, in the legal system of the United States, a criminal defendant charged with a felony theft charge, the conviction of which would require imprisonment in state prison, may be offered the opportunity to plead guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge, which may not carry a custodial sentence. In cases such as an automo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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