The ministerial proposal for a 10th amendment of the German competition law particularly addresses abuse control and seeks to tighten this pillar of competition policy against the background of the challenges from the digital economy. Next to extending the classic policy instruments of abuse...

We analyze a drastic price increase in the German auction market for reserve power, which did not appear to be driven by increased costs. Studying the market structure and individual bidding strategies, we find evidence for collusive behavior in an environment with repeated auctions, pivotal...

We develop a game-theoretic electricity market model that allows analyzing strategic electricity storage in an imperfect market setting. We apply the model to Germany and examine different cases of strategic and non-strategic pumped hydro storage operation. We find that introducing storage...

In this paper, we develop the game-theoretic electricity market model ElStorM that includes the possibility of strategic electricity storage. We apply the model to the German electricity market and analyze different realistic and counterfactual cases of strategic and non-strategic pumped hydro...

This paper studies competition in the German market for mobile telecommunications, motivated by recent suggestions that T-Mobile and Vodafone possess a position of collective dominance. Allegedly, their position of joint dominance is secured through a combination of first-mover advantages and...

We study the strategic utilization of storage in imperfect electricity markets. We apply a game-theoretic Cournot model to the German power market and analyze different counterfactual and realistic cases of pumped hydro storage. Our main finding is that both storage utilization and...

We use a game-theoretic model to analyze the impacts of a hypothetical fleet of plug-in electric vehicles on the imperfectly competitive German electricity market. Electric vehicles bring both additional demand and additional storage capacity to the market. We determine the effects on prices,...

We analyze the pass-through of cost changes to retail tariffs in the German electricity market over the 2007 to 2014 period. We find an average pass-through rate of around 60%, which significantly varies with demand factors: while the pass-through rate to baseline tariffs, where firms have...

Do we have effective competition between the gasoline's big five oligopolists (Aral, Shell, Esso, Total and Jet) and fringe gasoline stations? Using 2014 Market Transparency price data from 66 cities with populations between 60,000 and 100,000, we analyze which brands lead price increases, the...

There is a discrepancy between Europe and the United States on whether margin squeeze is a relevant question for competition law and policy. Beyond this question, it is unclear whether law and the Cartel Office can detect margin squeeze, assuming it is necessary to look into the matter. In...