This paper provides an assessment of EC merger policy from three perspectives. First, it places the evolution of merger policy alongside the evolution of economic ideas in relation to competition and industrial organisation. Second, it highlights recent developments in the practical economic...

Many important regulatory decisions are taken by professionals employing limited and conflicting evidence. We conduct an experiment in a merger regulation setting, identifying the role of different standards of proof, volumes of evidence, cost of error and professional or lay decision making....

Despite its importance and singularity, the EU’s state aid policy has attracted less scholarly attention than other elements of EU competition policy. Introducing the themes addressed by the special issue, this article briefly reviews the development of EU policy and highlights why the control...

We contrast the theory underpinning state aid for failing banks with that for failing firms in the non-financial sector. We argue that there is little justification for measures to ‘compensate’ rivals when the bank has been saved for reasons of systemic stability. The Commission’s approach...

Unlike previous cross-section studies which test predictions from the theory of industrial structure, we do not make an ex ante assumption about the geographical market at which competition takes place. We develop an econometric technique that endogenously determines whether the EU or member...

This paper provides a first attempt to understand how outcomes are determined by the standard institutions of merger control. In particular, we focus on the internationally standard 2-phase investigation structure and remedy negotiations of the form practiced by the EC. We find that there are...

Monopoly pricing is a textbook market failure that is taught in the first year of any economics course. The implied welfare loss (or ‘exploitative abuse’) justifies a whole range of competition policy towards cartels, mergers and regulated industries. Yet there is widespread hostility to...

Why do all the rules of good competition policy appear to fly out of the window when the banks get into trouble?

To understand the potential effectiveness of the CMA, we need to understand the organizations that are being merged. The CC and OFT are very different animals. Bruce Lyons (CCP, Univ. of East Anglia)