This article is an attempt of summarizing key economic approaches to cartel agreements analysis, its stability, ways of estimating social consequences of cartel agreements. It is alleged that the traditional way of understanding the cartels’ role as completely negative is not accurate; this type of inter-corporate agreements may also bring positive effects on industrial markets. Typical limits of analytical apparatus, contradictions that appear while interpreting results of specific economic models are also represented in the article, as well as substantiation of a discrete role of pricing factor within the analysis of anti-competitive agreements.
