Sustainability goals are frequently achieved through cooperation between companies. However, this is often inadmissible under current competition law. So far, the competition authorities have had to limit their assessment of cooperations and mergers to the effects in the relevant market. The EU...

In this paper we outline how a future change in consumers' willingness-to-pay can be accounted for in a consumer welfare effects analysis in antitrust. Key to our solution is the prediction of preferences of new consumers and changing preferences of existing consumers in the future. The...

Agencies around the world are in the process of developing taxonomies and standards for sustainable (or ESG) investment products. A key assumption in our model is that of non-consequentialist private investors (households) who derive a "warm glow" decisional utility when purchasing an investment...

We analyze firms incentives to coordinate on the introduction of a more sustainable product variant when consumers preferences for greater sustainability depend on the perceived social norm, which in turn is shaped by average consumption behavior. Such preferences lead to multiple equilibria. If...

We analyze firms incentives to coordinate on the introduction of a more sustainable product variant when consumers preferences for greater sustainability depend on the perceived social norm, which in turn is shaped by average consumption behavior. Such preferences lead to multiple equilibria. If...

Our starting point is the following simple but potentially underappreciated observation: When assessing willingness to pay (WTP) for hedonic features of a product, the results of such measurement are influenced by the context in which the consumer makes her real or hypothetical choice or in...

Recent changes in national competition laws and enforcement guidelines, including those of the European Commission, increase the scope for considering sustainability benefits in the assessment of horizontal cooperations. Abstracting from (standard) arguments that relate to cost sharing,...

Spurred by recent publications of NACs, there is an ongoing debate on whether and, if so, how competition law and its enforcement shall give due consideration to concerns of sustainability, notably (though not exclusively) environmental sustainability. With respect to horizontal agreements, we...

Our starting point is the following simple but potentially underappreciated observation: When assessing willingness to pay (WTP) for hedonic features of a product, the results of such measurement are influenced by the context in which the consumer makes her real or hypothetical choice or in...