This paper empirically investigates the effectiveness of competition policy by estimating its impact on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth for 22 industries in 12 OECD countries over the period 1995-2005. We find a robust positive and signficant effect of competition policy asmeasured by...

The aim of this paper is to describe in detail a set of newly developed indicators of the quality of competition policy, Competition Policy Indexes, or CPIs. The CPIs measure the deterrence properties of a competition policy in a jurisdiction, where for competition policy we mean the antitrust...

This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the deterrence properties of a competition policy regime. On the basis of the economic theory of law enforcement we identify several factors that are likely to affect its degree of deterrence: 1) sanctions and damages; 2) financial and human...

We study the consequences of leniency - reduced legal sanctions for wrongdoers who spontaneously self-report to law enforcers - on sequential, bilateral, illegal transactions, such as corruption, manager-auditor collusion, or drug deals. It is known that leniency helps deterring illegal...

Feedback mechanisms that allow partners to rate each other after a transaction are considered crucial for the success of anonymous internet trading platforms. We document an asymmetry in the feedback behavior on eBay, propose an explanation based on the micro structure of the feedback mechanism...

We model networks of relational (or implicit) contracts, exploring how sanctioning power and equilibrium conditions change under different network configurations and information transmission technologies. In our model, relations are the links, and the value of the network lies in its ability to...

We apply results from recent theoretical work on networks of relations to analyze optimal peering strategies for asymmetric ISPs. It is shown that - from a network of relations perspective - ISPs' asymmetry in bilateral peering agreements need not be a problem, since when these form a closed...

eBay's feedback mechanism is considered crucial to establishing and maintaining trust on the world's largest trading platform. The effects of a user's reputation on the probability of sale and on prices are at the center of a large number of studies. More recent theoretical work considers...

We study the impact on bank merger activity of the strengthening in merger control legislation introduced in Europe between 1989 and 2004. We find that strengthening merger control increases the abnormal returns on bank target stocks in the days around the merger announcement by 7 percentage...

It is commonly perceived that firms do not want to be outsiders to a merger between competitor firms. We instead argue that it is beneficial to be a non-merging rival firm to a large horizontal merger. Using a sample of mergers with expert-identification of relevant rivals and the event-study...