Together with his co-authors, Prof. Alminas Zaldokas has received 18th Annual Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award in recognition for the outstanding contribution to antitrust scholarship.

Ailin Dong, Massimo Massa, and Alminas Žaldokas are honored for their article, "The Effects of Global Leniency Programs on Margins and Mergers," published in the RAND Journal of Economics in 2019.

The authors investigate how passage of national leniency programs has affected firms' margins and merger activity. National leniency programs give amnesty to cartel conspirators that cooperate with antitrust authorities. The authors find that such programs reduce the gross margins of the affected firms, suggesting they are effective at reducing cartel activity. However, the authors also find that firms react to such programs by engaging in more mergers, and that some of those mergers may increase market power. Their empirical results imply that although leniency programs are generally effective, their benefits are offset to some extent by mergers that substitute for cartels. The authors thus advocate for stronger merger review.