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The Requisite Legal Standard of the Digital Markets Act’s Designation Process J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2024-09-04 Alba Ribera Martínez
Moving away from the effects-based approach in EU competition law, the Digital Markets Act introduces renewed requisite legal standards that differ from probabilistic standards of proof. Ideally, this concept should also shape the European Commission’s initial enforcement actions and its judicial review in the EU courts. The paper critically examines the legal standards that the European Commission
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Price Effects of Horizontal Mergers: A Retrospective on Retrospectives J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-04 Annika Stöhr
This comprehensive review of ex post merger studies assesses the price effects of horizontal transactions to determine whether there are common post-merger price effects, both overall and in specific markets. The aim is to derive implications for policy makers and competition authorities in terms of effective merger enforcement and competition policy. By combining and further analysing the results
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Empirical Effects of Resale Price Maintenance: Evidence from Fixed Book Price Policies in Europe J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-31 Rhys J Williams
This paper investigates the effects of Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) agreements in Europe by studying a legally permitted form of RPM in the book market. In particular, we study the effects of such agreements on prices and sales, finding that countries which have Fixed Book Prices policies witness higher book sales, relative to countries without such a policy, with no noticeable effect on the average
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ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF ABUSE OF DOMINANCE PROVISIONS J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Chiara Fumagalli, Massimo Motta
The European Commission (EC) has recently announced its intention to issue Guidelines on exclusionary abuses. In this paper, we explain how economics can and should be used to inform a sound and effects-based approach in the enforcement of Article 102 TFEU. In particular, the EC should be guided only by a consumer welfare standard; exclusive dealing and exclusivity rebates should be subject to a (rebuttable)
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MERGING LAGGARDS J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Jorge Padilla, Salvatore Piccolo, Paul Reynolds
We argue that mergers among market laggards (new entrants or innovation challengers) should be treated differently than those involving leaders (established players or first-mover innovators). We show that these mergers can be rivalry-enhancing, either by accelerating entry or promoting innovations, leading to lower quality-adjusted prices and higher consumer surplus. This is more likely to happen
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The Effective Use of Economics in the EU Digital Markets Act J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Amelia Fletcher, Jacques Crémer, Paul Heidhues, Gene Kimmelman, Giorgio Monti, Rupprecht Podszun, Monika Schnitzer, Fiona Scott Morton, Alexandre de Streel
Economic thinking and analysis lie at the heart of the objectives and the design of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA). However, the design of the DMA reflects a very deliberate—and reasonable—intention to ensure clarity, speed, administrability, and enforceability. In doing so, this pro-competitive regulation omits several elements of standard competition law where economics has typically played a key
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Competitor Coupons: A Remedy for Residual Collusion J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-23 Joseph E Harrington
There are well-documented episodes of prices remaining at supracompetitive levels even after a cartel was shut down by the competition authority. As long as market conditions remain reasonably stable, collusive prices may still be incentive compatible so the collusive equilibrium could continue after firms are no longer engaging in illicit communications. This situation poses a challenging dilemma:
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Product Hopping and Innovation Incentives J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-07 Jorge Lemus, Olgu Ozkul
We study innovation incentives under “product hopping,” whereby an incumbent patents a minor modification of a pioneer drug (for example, a new delivery method) and promotes the modified version to shift demand from the original drug. We develop a model in which an incumbent races against an entrant to discover a drastic innovation. We show that product hopping can decrease the total research and development
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Legal Design in Sustainable Antitrust J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Roman Inderst, Stefan Thomas
We lay out a roadmap for how the legislator could create a framework of ‘sustainability corridors’ that would allow relying on the ancillary restraints/Wouters doctrine to make antitrust law more accommodating of sustainability considerations. Our analysis goes beyond the general feasibility of such corridors. It discusses different use-cases for such exemptions and methods for assessing the necessity
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INVESTMENT AND PATENT LICENSING IN THE VALUE CHAIN J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-10 Gerard Llobet, Damien Neven
At which stage in the production chain should patent licensing take place? In this paper we show that under realistic circumstances a patent holder would be better off by licensing downstream. This occurs when the licensing revenue can depend on the downstream value of the product either directly or through the use of ad-valorem royalties. Downstream licensing is also preferred by the patent holder
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Industrial Policies, Competition, and Efficiency: The Need for State Aid Control J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Joanna Piechucka, Lluís Saurí-Romero, Ben Smulders
This paper contributes to the current debate on industrial policies, by discussing the potential scope and design principles of efficiency-enhancing industrial policies and providing a framework of assessment based on the European experience with State aid control. It argues four main points. First, there is scope for efficiency-enhancing industrial policies that address well-defined market failures
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Concentration and Competition: Evidence From Europe and Implications For Policy J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-11 Gábor Koltay, Szabolcs Lorincz, Tommaso Valletti
The paper provides new evidence on proxy indicators of market power for major European countries. The data show moderately increasing average industry concentration over the last two decades, a considerably increasing proportion of high-concentration industries, and an overall tendency toward oligopolistic structure. Estimates of aggregate profitability also show a sustained increase over the recent
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Relevant Generality of Antitrust Economics: Competitive Effects as Adjudicative and Legislative Facts J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-04 Jan Broulík
Antitrust enforcement proceedings routinely rely on information provided by positive economics. Recognizing that this information may help the court to decide what happened in the case at bar as well as what substantive rule to apply to the case, this article examines how general the information needs to be to bear relevance to each of these decision-making tasks. The examination is conducted in the
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Recommender Systems and Supplier Competition on Platforms J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Amelia Fletcher, Peter L Ormosi, Rahul Savani
Digital platforms can offer a multiplicity of items in one place. This should, in principle, lower end-users’ search costs and improve their decision-making, and thus enhance competition between suppliers using the platform. But end-users struggle with large choice sets. Recommender systems (RSs) can help by predicting end-users’ preferences and suggesting relevant products. However, this process of
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Algorithmic Personalized Pricing with the Right to Explanation J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Zeyu Zhao
Personalized pricing by algorithms has been widely deployed by digital platforms. Although this strategy provides economic efficiencies and benefits consumers, it precipitates discriminatory, exploitative, and exclusive effects on the market. If massive market power and certain information asymmetry exist, this pricing behavior could be illegal as the negatives could outweigh the positives. The negatives
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Sustainability Agreements and First Mover Disadvantages J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-29 Johannes Paha
This article presents a model where the managers of two firms decide about adopting a sustainable production technology (or product). It demonstrates under what conditions a firm experiences a first mover disadvantage from going green, which may potentially be overcome by a sustainability agreement serving as a device for equilibrium selection in a coordination game with multiple equilibria. If the
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Antitrust Economics of Cryptocurrency Mining J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-16 Florian Deuflhard, C-Philipp Heller
The development of blockchain-based applications, to date mostly virtual currencies, touches many areas of law and economics. The most well-known applications of public blockchains rely on Proof of Work as a consensus mechanism in which miners compete to solve a cryptographic puzzle. We argue that economic tools for market definition may be adapted to delineate relevant cryptocurrency mining markets
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Modelling the Diffusion of the Deterrent Effects of Competition Policy J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Adriaan Dierx, Fabienne Ilzkovitz, Beatrice Pataracchia, Filippo Pericoli
Through its competition policy interventions, the European Commission not only addresses infringements of EU competition law by the firms directly involved but also deters possible future anticompetitive behaviour by these firms and other market players. The present paper associates deterrence with the diffusion of information about the competition authority’s interventions to market players. In the
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The Cartel Trial: Issues of Dishonesty and Jury Nullification J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-03 Andreas Stephan
The case of R v Stringer and Dean provides a unique insight into issues of dishonesty and possible jury nullification in offences designed to control corporate misbehaviour. The jury were unconvinced of the defendants’ dishonest state of mind in the first (and to date only) case to be tried under the UK’s cartel offence. This was despite no attempt being made to dispute the existence of the cartel
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Rivals’ Exit and Vertical Merger Evaluation J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-21 Javier D Donna, Pedro Pereira
We discuss a subset of vertical mergers, where the exercise of market power and the efficiencies enabled by a vertical merger reduce rivals’ profits, making rivals’ exit a potentially serious concern. Rivals’ exit can fundamentally alter the welfare analysis of vertical mergers due to the reduction in product variety to consumers and the reduction in the number of competitors that would otherwise exert
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Does Enforcement of the Cartel Prohibition in Healthcare Reflect Public and Political Attitudes Towards Competition? A Longitudinal Study From the Netherlands J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-18 Wouter van der Schors, Marco Varkevisser
In market-based healthcare systems, due to the high and increasing degree of integration between healthcare providers and purchasers, the enforcement of the cartel prohibition is both important and ever more complex. Competition authorities operate independently, but their approach to enforcement may be influenced by the public and political context. Within the setting of the Dutch healthcare system
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DELINEATING ZERO-PRICE MARKETS WITH NETWORK EFFECTS: AN ANALYSIS OF FREE MESSENGER SERVICES J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-02 Akihiro Nakamura, Takanori Ida
Billions of users worldwide utilize digital zero-price services every day. This study proposes a market definition method for digital zero-price services, using the messenger service as an example. We employ the small but significant nontransitory increase in cost test, which is an improved version of the small but significant nontransitory increase in price test, and conduct conjoint analysis while
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Active Choice vs. Inertia? An Exploratory Assessment of the European Microsoft Case’s Choice Screen J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-08-21 Omar Vasquez Duque
In January 2009, the European Commission accused Microsoft of extending its monopoly from the operating system market to the browsers market by preinstalling Internet Explorer (IE) and setting it as the users’ default. Microsoft settled the case agreeing to display a choice screen to its users located in the European Economic Area, Croatia, and Switzerland, whose default web browser was Internet Explorer
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Platform-Based Business Models and Financial Inclusion: Policy Trade-Offs and Approaches J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-08-15 Karen Croxson, Jon Frost, Leonardo Gambacorta, Tommaso Valletti
Three types of digital platforms are expanding in financial services: (i) fintech entrants; (ii) big tech firms; and (iii) increasingly, incumbent financial institutions with platform-based business models. These platforms can dramatically lower costs and thereby aid financial inclusion—but these same features can give rise to digital monopolies and oligopolies. Digital platforms operate in multisided
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Mergers, Acquisitions and Merger Control in an Algorithmic Pricing World J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-20 Michael David Coutts
This paper considers whether pricing algorithms present novel issues that existing merger control frameworks and practices are inadequate to address, particularly in relation to pre-merger disclosure of pricing algorithms and the suitability of current tests and remedies for addressing coordinated effects. Through a comparative and critical analysis of the merger control regimes and practices of the
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FINE-TUNING THE EX ANTE APPROACH TO REGULATING DATA COMBINATION PRACTICES J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-04-25 Xingyu Yan,Huaiwen He
Abstract Antitrust in digital markets is gravitating towards ex ante regulation. This is prompted by growing concerns for user data exploitation and rival foreclosure on the part of big tech platforms. One particular area embodying such concerns pertains to data combination practices—more specifically, within-conglomerate data sharing, where data collection is scaled up in digital ecosystems and monetized
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A COAT OF MANY COLOURS—NEW CONCEPTS AND METRICS OF ECONOMIC POWER IN COMPETITION LAW AND ECONOMICS J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Ioannis Lianos, Bruno Carballa-Smichowski
The digital economy has brought new business models that rely on zero-price markets and multi-sided platforms nested in business ecosystems. The traditional concept of market power used by competition authorities cannot engage with this new reality in which (economic) power manifests beyond price and output within a relevant market. These developments have culminated in multiple recent calls for a
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CROSS-MARKET IMPACT OF PLATFORMS’ ACTIVITIES: A SECONDARY RELEVANT MARKET APPROACH J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-04-13 Ki Jong Lee
Abstract As platform industries prosper, games are becoming more and more like a team competition rather than an individual sport. Literature on platform envelopment and ecosystems competition shed light on the increasing need to consider cross-market effects of platforms’ activities in competitive analysis. Some established legal principles consider cross-market effects of platforms activities. However
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Correction J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-16 Smith S.
The originally published version of this paper had several errors, and the publisher apologises for those introduced during production process. Text should read: (p.644, paragraph 1) “What remains is the claim” instead of “What remains is claim”; (p.645, paragraph 2) “. . .before-and-after comparisons.” instead of “. . .prior to-and-after comparisons.”; (p.650, paragraph 2) “. . .manufacture or distribution
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On Distributive Justice by Antitrust: The Robin Hood Cartel J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-17 Maarten Pieter Schinkel
Equity concerns in antitrust could justify market power in return for a fairer allocation by weighing the consumer welfare of certain disadvantaged groups more heavily. A simple example of an equity-justified agreement illustrates how seeking distributive justice through relaxed antitrust enforcement is ineffective and inefficient. Permitting competitors to jointly set prices gives them the power to
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Introduction to Special Issue on Common Ownership and Interlocking Directorates J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-04 Fletcher A, Peitz M, Thépot F.
Common ownership by institutional investors—of minority stakes across multiple competing firms—has become a subject of heated debate in the antitrust community. Although often driven by portfolio diversification strategies, rather than anticompetitive intent, common ownership can result, in some sectors, in the concentration of financial ownership, with possible anticompetitive effects.
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Platform Regulation in Europe—Per Se Rules to the Rescue? J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Anne C Witt
Mainstream competition law has failed to protect competition in core digital platform markets. This is partially due to enforcement agencies’ current commitment to proving the investigated conduct’s actual effects on competition and consumer welfare on the basis of in-depth assessments of each case’s individual circumstances before intervening in the market. While reducing the likelihood of erroneously
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Varieties and Mechanisms of Common Ownership: A Calibration Exercise for Competition Policy J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-19 Tzanaki A.
AbstractMinority shareholdings have been on the regulatory agenda of competition authorities for some time. Recent empirical studies, however, draw attention to a new, thought-provoking theory of harm: common ownership by institutional investors holding small, parallel equity positions in several competing firms within concentrated industries. While critical voices abound, EU and U.S. antitrust agencies
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Bank Consolidation, Interest Rates, and Risk: A Post-Merger Analysis Based on Loan-Level Data from the Corporate Sector* J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-12-17 Steffen Juranek, Øivind A Nilsen, Simen A Ulsaker
In this paper, we analyze the bank merger between DnB and Gjensidige Bank in 2003, ranked by market share as number one and number three in the Norwegian bank market. Focusing on loans to firms, our difference-in-differences analysis shows no increase of concentration of new loans. The concentration in affected markets (markets where both merging parties were present) developed similar to unaffected
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Common Shareholders and Interlocking Directors: The Relation Between Two Corporate Networks J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-05 José Azar
This paper studies the empirical relationship between common ownership and interlocking directorships. I estimate a gravity equation model for the probability that a pair of firms will have a common director, as a function of the geographic distance between the firms, their sizes, and a set of covariates, including measures of common ownership between the firms. The main finding is that, robustly across
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Multisided Platform Analysis and Competition Law Enforcement Practice in Brics Countries J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-10-16 Svetlana Golovanova, Eduardo Pontual Ribeiro
As leading businesses organize themselves as two-sided platforms, developed economies competition authorities have adapted their practice. Younger jurisdictions also face the challenge to review and use new analytics. We explore the recent evolution of two-sided platform markets analysis in BRICS countries, focusing on a key point for competition policy enforcement: relevant market definition. The
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Collusion as Environmental Protection—An Economic Assessment J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-23 Cento Veljanovski
This article examines the relationship between the environment, sustainability, and European competition law. It shows that the European Commission’s decisional practice not to exempt anticompetitive agreements under Article 101(3) TFEU is because it selectively prosecutes hardcore cartels. The alleged ‘sustainability gap’ in EU antitrust is, therefore, more apparent than real. It is also shown that
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Prospective Welfare Analysis—Extending Willingness-To-Pay Assessment to Embrace Sustainability J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-22 Roman Inderst, Stefan Thomas
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 dimension of time is inextricably linked with that of sustainability. Taking into account the welfare of future
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Horizontal Directors Revisited J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-16 Yaron Nili
U.S. academic discourse on director interlocks is not new. Yet, the increased attention to common ownership has also brought to light the increased tendency of interlocked directors to serve in the same industry. I termed these directors as horizontal directors in my earlier work—shining a light on the benefits they bring to investors and companies but also the risks they pose to governance and antitrust
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Designing Remedies for Digital Markets: The Interplay Between Antitrust and Regulation J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-08 Filippo Lancieri, Caio Mario S Pereira Neto
Regulatory interventions aimed at promoting competition in digital markets face a challenge: How to design remedies that actually improve welfare? This article helps provide an answer to this question. First, it maps out the frontier of remedy design: Part II.A summarizes antitrust and regulatory remedies imposed on digital companies over the past decades, while Part II.B reviews nineteen reports on
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Common Ownership Patterns in the European Banking Sector—The Impact of the Financial Crisis1 J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-08 Albert Banal-Estañol, Nuria Boot, Jo Seldeslachts
We provide a description of ownership patterns in the top 25 European banks for the period 2003–2015, where we especially focus on the global financial crisis. Investment managers, such as Blackrock, are dominant in terms of number of blockholdings in different banks, maintaining fairly stable “common ownership” networks throughout our sample. However, the financial crisis led to capital injections
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On the Risks of Using the Sequential Product-Level SSNIP Approach to Identify Relevant Antitrust Markets‡ J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-08 Jorge Padilla, Salvatore Piccolo, Pekka Sääskilahti
In a recent influential paper Coate et al. (2021) have criticized the sequential product-level approach to market definition in merger review. They argue that a simultaneous market-level approach to critical loss is more appropriate than a product-level critical loss analysis, because under certain plausible demand scenarios (nonlinear demand functions) the latter could yield the wrong answer on market
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Can E-Procurement Reduce Bid Rigging in Public Auctions? J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-08-13 Rieko Ishii
The adoption of e-procurement may reduce bid rigging in public auctions by limiting in-person meetings of bidders. Using the data from construction auctions tendered by a Japanese local government where paper-based manual procurement is replaced by e-procurement, we find that the adoption of e-procurement reduced bids in a section of the market where the bids were initially higher than the other section
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Using the Statistical Concept of “Severity” to Assess the Compatibility of Seemingly Contradictory Statistical Evidence (With a Particular Application to Damage Estimation) J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-08-10 Peter Bönisch, Roman Inderst
When parties present divergent econometric evidence, the court might either combine such evidence in an ad hoc way or view such evidence as contradictory and thus ignore it completely, without conducting closer analysis of the possible sources of the contradiction. We believe that the reasons for this development are (i) that the statistical evidence is often interpretated in a simplistic manner and
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Digital Market Definition in the European Union, United States, and Brazil: Past, Present, and Future J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-08-09 Magali Eben, Viktoria H S E Robertson
Market definition is a core concept of competition law around the globe, including in the European Union, the United States, and Brazil. In all three jurisdictions, antitrust authorities are grappling with the challenges of digital markets, often dealing with the very same digital players. The provision of zero-price services, the multisided nature of many digital platforms, and the implementation
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Reflective Willingness to Pay: Preferences for Sustainable Consumption in a Consumer Welfare Analysis J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-08-09 Roman Inderst, Stefan Thomas
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 which the questions to which she replies are set (such as in a contingent valuation analysis). This observation
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Incentivizing Private Antitrust Enforcement to Promote Leniency Applications J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Sinchit Lai
Both leniency programs and private antitrust enforcement are essential in combating cartels. The literature demonstrates that society benefits from both increased private actions and leniency applications. However, the present view is that private enforcement discourages cartel members from seeking leniency. Proponents of this view blame follow-on civil actions in the wake of successful public antitrust
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Patent Assertion Entities and Patent Ownership Transparency: Strategic Recording of Patent Transactions at the Uspto J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-07-17 Valerio Sterzi
Many patent assertion entities (PAEs) hide behind multiple unknown subsidiaries or shell companies with obscure ownership. Meanwhile, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), like many other patent offices, does not impose a strict time period for recording the change of ownership of a patent, allowing the holder to gain an advantage by controlling the timing of its ownership disclosure
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Big Data and Digital Markets Contestability: Theory of Harm and Data Access Remedies J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-07-13 Jan Krämer, Daniel Schnurr
This article analyses the crucial role of user data for digital markets contestability and presents policy proposals devised to address growing concerns about the dominance of data-rich incumbents in digital markets. To this end, we discuss a data-driven theory of harm that would warrant ex-ante data access regulation and highlight that niche entry and growth should be the primary economic policy objective
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Nondiscrimination in Standard Essential Patents; ND Prong V. Art. 102(C) TFEU J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-07-07 Botta M.
AbstractThe article analyses the meaning of the nondiscriminatory principle in disputes concerning Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) under EU competition and contract law (that is, ND prong). The article reviews the economics literature, looking at the welfare effect of price discrimination and the interpretation of the ND prong provided by a number of economists. Secondly, the article analyses the
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Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Italian Interlocking Ban: An Empirical Analysis of the Personal Ties Among The Largest Banking and Insurance Groups in Italy J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-07-07 Federico Ghezzi, Chiara Picciau
In 2011, Italy introduced a ban on interlocking directorates in the financial sector, prohibiting members of the boards of directors and of the internal control bodies, as well as top managers of banking, insurance, and financial companies, from holding any such office in a competing company or group. Empirical studies have demonstrated conflicting results concerning the effectiveness of the Italian
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Equality of Opportunity and Antitrust: The Curious Case of College Rankings J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-07-02 Stavroulaki T.
AbstractRankings increasingly dominate our world. We use them to choose just about everything—from which pizza or ice cream to buy, to which doctors to trust with our health, to which universities to trust with our intellectual growth and flourishing. But should we trust them? Taking popular academic rankings as an example, such as the U.S. News rankings, this article contends not necessarily, for
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Patent Assertion Entities and Patent Ownership Transparency: Strategic Recording of Patent Transactions at the Uspto J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-06-21 Valerio Sterzi
Many patent assertion entities (PAEs) hide behind multiple unknown subsidiaries or shell companies with obscure ownership. Meanwhile, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), like many other patent offices, does not impose a strict time period for recording the change of ownership of a patent, allowing the holder to gain an advantage by controlling the timing of its ownership disclosure
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Prometheus Bound?—The Uncertain Future of the Unilateral Effects Analysis in Eu Merger Control After CK Telecoms J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-06-18 Elias Deutscher
In the recent CK Telecoms (Case T-399/16) judgment, the General Court annulled the European Commission’s decision to block the four-to-three telecom merger Hutchison3G UK/Telefónica UK. This watershed case is set to curtail the Commission’s ability to challenge future mergers in concentrated markets and proposes a fundamental reshape of the analysis of unilateral effects in the absence of dominance
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Nondiscrimination in Standard Essential Patents; ND Prong V. Art. 102(C) TFEU J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-06-17 Marco Botta
The article analyses the meaning of the nondiscriminatory principle in disputes concerning Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) under EU competition and contract law (that is, ND prong). The article reviews the economics literature, looking at the welfare effect of price discrimination and the interpretation of the ND prong provided by a number of economists. Secondly, the article analyses the case law
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Exclusive Rights Stimulate Design Around: How Circumventing Edison’s Lamp Patent Promoted Competition and New Technology Development J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-06-02 Ron D Katznelson, John Howells
Designing around patents is prevalent but not often appreciated as a means by which patents promote economic development through competition. We provide a novel empirical study of the extent and timing of designing around patent claims. We study the filing rate of incandescent lamp-related patents during 1878–1898 and find that the enforcement of Edison’s incandescent lamp patent in 1891–1894 stimulated
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Interventions by Common Owners* J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-05-06 Shekita N.
AbstractCommon ownership exists when investors concurrently hold partial and significant shares in related firms. In this paper, I compile, document, and taxonomize 30 separate cases of intervention to demonstrate how common owners influence firm behavior. Although previous literature has identified a link between common ownership and product market outcomes, critics have questioned a common owner’s
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Incentivizing Private Antitrust Enforcement to Promote Leniency Applications J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-04-27 Sinchit Lai
Both leniency programs and private antitrust enforcement are essential in combating cartels. The literature demonstrates that society benefits from both increased private actions and leniency applications. However, the present view is that private enforcement discourages cartel members from seeking leniency. Proponents of this view blame follow-on civil actions in the wake of successful public antitrust
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Equality of Opportunity and Antitrust: The Curious Case of College Rankings J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-04-22 Theodosia Stavroulaki
Rankings increasingly dominate our world. We use them to choose just about everything—from which pizza or ice cream to buy, to which doctors to trust with our health, to which universities to trust with our intellectual growth and flourishing. But should we trust them? Taking popular academic rankings as an example, such as the U.S. News rankings, this article contends not necessarily, for several
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Leniency and Damage Liability for Cartel Members in Brazil J. Compet. Law Econ. (IF 1.3) Pub Date : 2021-04-21 Lucas Campio Pinha, Marcelo José Braga
A recent debate on leniency policies is the interplay between the public and the private competition law enforcement. The lack of a well-established set of rules regarding damage claims may be harming the effectiveness of the Brazilian Leniency Program, either by discouraging the wrongdoers from applying for leniency in already formed cartels or by not being threatening enough to deter the cartel formation