Many cartels are formed by individual managers of different firms, but not by firms as collectives. However, most of the literature in industrial economics neglects individuals' incentives to form cartels. Although oligopoly experiments reveal important insights on individuals acting as firms,...

Many cartels are formed by individual managers of different firms, but not by firms as collectives. However, most of the literature in industrial economics neglects individuals' incentives to form cartels. Although oligopoly experiments reveal important insights on individuals acting as firms,...

Declining ATM numbers pose a challenge for competition policy and financial regulatory authorities. In this report we review the Finnish experience of regulating the competition in the ATM industry. To analyze the Finnish developments we extend the model of Kopsakangas-Savolainen and Takalo...

A start-up engages in an investment portfolio problem by choosing how much to invest in a "rival" project, which threatens the position of an existing incumbent, and a "non-rival" project. Anticipating its acquisition by the incumbent, the start-up strategically distorts its portfolio of...

Industry-wide voluntary agreements are touted as a means for corporations to take more corporate social responsibility (CSR). We study what type of joint CSR agreement induces firms to increase CSR efforts in a model of oligopolistic competition with differentiated products. Consumers have a...

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 examine the profitability of cross-ownership in an oligopolistic industry where firms compete as Cournot rivals. We consider a symmetric cross-ownership structure in which a subset of k firms engage in cross-shareholding and each firm has an equal silent financial interest in the other firms,...

Digital antitrust is at the forefront of all expert discussions and is far from becoming an area of consensus among researchers. Moreover, the prescriptions for developed countries do not fit well the situation in developing countries, and namely in BRICS: where the violator of antitrust laws is...

The objectives of competition policy and the application of competition law need defining and redefining along with changing structures of the economy and the maturing of the competition authority. Market structures associated with digital technology and globalization are often not in consonance...

The rollout of fifth generation mobile networks is progressing around the world, but 5G looks especially expensive compared to previous generations. Network sharing between two or more mobile operators is an obvious way to attain significant cost savings, but may also raise competition concerns....

In this paper, we analyse the final decisions for merger cases prepared by the European Commission (EC) since 1990 and build a unique subsample for all non-cleared cases. These incorporate all merger notifications which were either withdrawn by the notifying parties or have been prohibited by...

We propose an analysis of platform competition based on the academic literature with a view towards competition policy. First, we discuss to which extent competition can emerge in digital markets and show which forms it can take. In particular, we underline the role of dynamics, but also of...

Many cartels are formed by individual managers of different firms, but not by firms as collectives. However, most of the literature in industrial economics neglects individuals' incentives to form cartels. Although oligopoly experiments reveal important insights on individuals acting as firms,...

A monopolist data intermediary collects consumer information that it strategically sells to competing firms in a product market for price discrimination purposes. The intermediary charges a price of information and chooses the optimal partition that maximizes the willingness to pay of firms for...

Many cartels are formed by individual managers of different firms, but not by firms as collectives. However, most of the literature in industrial economics neglects individuals' incentives to form cartels. Although oligopoly experiments reveal important insights on individuals acting as firms,...

A monopolist data intermediary collects consumer information that it strategically sells to competing firms in a product market for price discrimination purposes. The intermediary charges a price of information and chooses the optimal partition that maximizes the willingness to pay of firms for...

The paper provides new evidence on proxy indicators of market power for major European countries. The data shows moderately increasing average industry concentration over the last two decades, a considerably increasing proportion of high concentration industries, and an overall tendency towards...

Digitale Plattformen sind auf vielen Märkten aktiv und spielen deshalb auch bei Innovationen eine entscheidende Rolle. Sie selbst bringen Innovationen hervor, können aber auch bei den Plattformnutzern und anderen Akteuren des Plattformökosystems Innovationen incentivieren. Plattformen...

This paper aims to analyze the interfaces between Brazilian Competition Law and the issue of access to medicines, with special focus on abuses of industrial property rights in their exclusionary and exploitative effects. The paper analyzes the case law of the Brazilian Administrative Council for...

We consider mergers between multi-product firms in a market with monopolistically competitive fringe of single-product firms. Aggregate product variety is determined by product variety choices of multi-product firms and entry/exit decisions of single-product firms. Mergers can generate marginal...

Market concentration often leads to unnecessarily high prices and reduced innovation. European merger control positively affects competition and productivity, though not yet perfectly effectively. In times of increased market concentration, merger control needs to be enforced even more...

Nowadays, merger control predominantly relies upon a strict analysis of the effects from merger and acquisitions on effective competition. However, there is scope for so-called public interest considerations in several European merger control regimes and recently a number of European politicians...

This paper provides an economic analysis of recent vertical and horizontal mergers in the U.S. industry for audiovisual media content, including the AT&T-Time Warner and the Disney-Fox mergers. Using a theory-driven approach, we examine economic effects of these types of mergers on market...

We analyze a large merger in the Dutch banking market during the financial crisis using disaggregated data. Based on a merger simulation model, we evaluate merger-induced changes in the interest rates for savings accounts. We find that the merging banks decreased interest rates by 3 to 5 percent...

We investigate the trade-off between financial stability and competition policy by focusing on the merger of ABN AMRO and Fortis Bank NL in the Dutch retail banking market. The financial crisis delayed the completion of the merger giving rise to anti-competitive behavior in the transitory...