I study the predictability of the EC’s merger decision procedure before and after the 2004 merger policy reform based on a dataset covering all affected markets of mergers with an official decision documented by DG Comp between 1990 and 2014. Using the highly flexible, non-parametric random...

Scholars and enforcement officials debate the merits and implications of “behavioral antitrust” — the application of empirical evidence showing how human behavior departs systematically and predictably from strict rationality (“bounded rationality”) to antitrust law. Notwithstanding...

Lacking predictability of competition-law enforcement has its costs. This paper shows that academic analyses of what competition laws should look like do not always treat this factor adequately, paying instead excessive attention to the problem of error. Namely, some analyses completely ignore...

I study the predictability of the EC’s merger decision procedure before and after the 2004 merger policy reform based on a dataset covering all affected markets of mergers with an official decision documented by DG Comp between 1990 and 2014. Using the highly flexible, non-parametric random...

This article distills insights about cartel formation from 41 cases prosecuted by the European Commission between 2001 and 2010. The case studies examine the events occurring in the industries prior to the cartels' set-up and identify the following potential causes for cartel formation: Changes...

This paper discusses the question whether self-learning price-setting algorithms are able to coordinate their pricing behaviour to achieve a collusive outcome that maximizes the joint profits of the firms using these algorithms. While the legal literature generally assumes that algorithmic...

Classic artificial intelligence (Q-learning) algorithms have been capable of consistently learning supra-competitive pricing strategies in infinitely repeated Nash-Bertrand pricing games without human communication. Such algorithms have been able to converge due to the temporal correlation of...

There is a large body of research in economics and law suggesting that the legal origins of a country—that is, whether its legal regime is based on English common law or French, German, or Nordic civil law—profoundly impacts a range of outcomes. However, the exact relationship between legal...

I study the predictability of the EC's merger decision procedure before and after the 2004 merger policy reform based on a dataset covering all affected markets of mergers with an official decision documented by DG Comp between 1990 and 2014. Using the highly flexible, non-parametric random...