Ex Post Economic Evaluation Of Competition Policy

Competition authorities are increasingly interested in understanding the impact of their activities on markets and consumers. The goal is to improve competition policy rules and decision-making practices and to get robust evidence on the benefits of competition and competition policy for society as a whole. Discussions with competition authorities, practitioners and academics have shown the need to take stock of the experience gained in this field by the European Commission and to present it in an easily accessible way. The studies collected in this volume – prepared by senior Commission officials and competition policy experts – range from the ex post evaluation of specific policy interventions to the assessment of the broader impact of competition policy. The issues and topics examined include the following: objectives and scope of evaluations by the European Commission; description of counterfactual evaluation techniques used; conditions for a successful ex post evaluation of a competition policy intervention; a wide selection of individual cases covering a variety of economic sectors; applications in merger control, antitrust and State aid; direct benefits of competition policy interventions for consumers; deterrent effects of such interventions on market participants; and macroeconomic outcomes in terms of job creation, productivity and GDP growth. This matchless book assembles within a single volume all that is needed for competition policy analysts and practitioners to undertake ex post economic evaluations. While its collection of state-of-the-art ex post evaluation studies has a clear value for competition authorities, it is sure to be welcomed as well by competition law practitioners in the private sector, who will greatly appreciate the effort made to cast a critical eye on decisions taken in the past. Moreover, it allows for addressing some of the new challenges facing competition policymakers. Fabienne Ilzkovitz is Principal Advisor responsible for the economic evaluation of competition policy within the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission, and since 2014, she has coordinated various ex post evaluation projects in the Directorate-General. She is also Associate Professor of Economics in the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Adriaan Dierx is Senior Expert on ex post economic evaluation within the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. He has managed a number of studies aimed at assessing the economic impact of the European Commission’s competition policy interventions.

This volume contains a selection of papers that were presented at the CRESSE Conferences held in Chania, Crete, from July 6th to 8th, 2012, and in Corfu from July 5th to 7th, 2013. The chapters address current policy issues in competition and regulation. The book contains contributions at the frontier of competition economics and regulation and provides perspectives on recent research findings in the field. Written by experts in their respective fields, the book brings together current thinking on market forces at play in imperfectly competitive industries, how firms use anti-competitive practices to their advantage and how competition policy and regulation can address market failures. It provides an in-depth analysis of various ongoing debates and offers fresh insights in terms of conceptual understanding, empirical findings and policy implications. The book contributes to our understanding of imperfectly competitive markets, anti-competitive practices and competition policy and regulation. Contents:Competition:Market Consolidation and Pricing Developments in Grocery Retailing: A Case Study (Ratula Chakraborty, Paul W Dobson, Jonathan S Seaton and Michael Waterson)The Price Effects of Mergers in Airline Networks (Kai Hüschelrath and Kathrin Müller)Pattern Asymmetry in the Pass-Through of Input Price Shocks in the Road Fuels Sector: New Evidence on the United Kingdom (Enrico Pesaresi, Conor Flanagan and Boryana Miteva)Better Product at Same Cost: Leader Innovation vs Generic Product Improvement (David J Balan and George Deltas)Industry Structure and Pricing Over the Business Cycle (Yossi Spiegel and Konrad Stahl)Price Competition between Platforms: The Case of eBay vs.Yahoo! Auctions (Stefan Behringer)Anticompetitive Practices:Cartel Sales Dynamics when Monitoring for Compliance is More Frequent than Punishment for Non-Compliance (Joseph E Harrington, Jr and Juan-Pablo Montero)Exploitation and Induced Tacit Collusion: A Classroom Experiment of Corporate Leniency Programs (Jeroen Hinloopen and Adriaan R Soetevent)Quantity Discounts and Market Power: The Michelin Case Revisited (Liliane Giardino-Karlinger)Technology Transfer, Contracting, and Product Market Competition (Frago Kourandi, Sabina Sachtachtinskagia and Nikolaos Vettas)Competition Policy and Regulation:How Can Competition Policy and Competition-Policy Economics Contribute to Solving the Healthcare Crisis? (Michael L Katz)Regulation Mismatch in Tackling CO2 Emissions (Claude Crampes)Public Policies in Investment-Intensive Industries (Giovanni Immordino and Michele Polo)The Role of Legal Principles in the Economic Analysis of Competition Policy (Harold Houba, Evgenia Motchenkova and Quan Wen)Deterrence in Competition Law (Paolo Buccirossi, Lorenzo Ciari, Tomaso Duso, Giancarlo Spagnolo and Cristiana Vitale)The Risks and Tricks in Public–Private Partnerships (Elisabetta Iossa, Giancarlo Spagnolo and Mercedes Vellez) Readership: Young researchers and doctoral students looking for new avenues and possibilities for future research; researchers looking for up-to-date treatment of a number of key competition issues; general public practitioners interested in analyzing competition policy. Key Features:Unique and up-to-date treatment of a number of topics in competition economics and regulationWritten by experts in their respective fields in a simple and accessible manner and will be of interest to researchers, PhD students and practitioners in competition economics and regulationProvides an in-depth analysis of various ongoing debates and offers fresh insights in terms of conceptual understanding, empirical findings and policy implicationsKeywords:Competition Policy;Sectoral Regulation;Pattern Asymmetry;Market Consolidation;Grocery Retailing;Pricing Developments;Industry Structure;Price Effects of Mergers;Input Price Shocks;Quantity Discounts

This insightful book assesses emerging trends in the role of economic analysis in EU competition policy, exploring how it has substantially increased in terms of both theories and methods.

Competition authorities use ex post evaluation of enforcement decisions to help determine if an intervention (or non-intervention) has achieved its objectives – and, if not, the reasons it failed to do so – thus allowing for improvement in the design and use of techniques used in the analysis underpinning the decision. In this essential volume, expert contributors use this procedure to provide a neutral and extensive assessment of cases that have significantly shaped European Union (EU) competition law enforcement. With in-depth analysis of foundational cases of EU competition law and the methodologies that have been developed over time to predict how enforcement decisions will affect competition, for each case the authors respond thoroughly to such questions as the following: Did the decision have an impact on the affected market? Did it improve consumer or social welfare? With the benefit of hindsight, were the factual assertions true? Were all the relevant theories of harm (and efficiency justifications) properly investigated? Was the decision able to deter similar anticompetitive behaviour? Did the decision provide clear guidance on which types of conduct should be deemed illegal? Industries covered include information technology (the Microsoft cases), payment cards (the Visa Europe 2010 Commitments Decision), pharmaceuticals, and conditional rebates (Michelin I, Michelin II and BA/Virgin). Also investigated are the role of buyer power in concentration cases and the relative strength of competition law enforcement versus regulation, where appropriate. In its accumulation of evidence from individual cases that have gradually improved our ability to grasp the connections between policy choices and the outcomes they lead to, this matchless volume has no peers. It constitutes an invaluable resource for competition authorities in performing ex post evaluations and will be welcomed by practitioners and academics concerned with European competition law.

As markets become increasingly integrated and globalised, competition policy is facing new challenges. Contributions from leading international experts explore theoretical and methodological issues of practical relevance for the new competition policy order and give examples of practical policy adjustments.

As countries large and small, rich and poor are drawn inexorably into the global economy, protectionist policies are proving increasingly inefficient and ineffective for driving growth. The countries of Latin America, which have long pursued agendas of state ownership and heavy regulation of key industries, began to institute a series of reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, designed to promote competition and business creation. However, without the legal and institutional framework to support these policies (and thus guarantee resource-efficient behavior on the part of business owners), the record has been spotty at best. Competition Policies in Emerging Economies features in-depth analysis of two key industries—telecommunications and banking—in several Central American nations to shed light on the dynamics of the transition to deregulation and trade liberalization, and learn from the experiences of these economies. This book has a three-fold purpose: (1) to examine the competition conditions and policies of small developing countries of Central America (and hence cover an area where very little information exists); (2) develop an in-depth analysis of regulation and competition policies in two key industrial sectors with poor competition records (telecommunications and banking); (3) link the former results analysis with other international experiences, in order to derive research and policy recommendations that can be applied to other small, developing, and emerging economies. Featuring discussion of political, legal, economic, financial, cultural, and organization-level issues, the book provides unique perspectives on the forces resisting competitive practices and offers suggestions for overcoming them.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the economic and competition policy issues that buyer power creates. Drawing on economic analysis and cases from around the world, it explains why conventional seller side standards and analyses do not provide an adequate framework for responding to the problems that buyer power can create. Based on evidence that abuse of buyer power is a serious problem for the competitive process, the book evaluates the potential for competition law to deal directly with the problems of abuse either through conventional competition law or special rules aimed at abusive conduct. Peter C. Carstensen's expert analysis uses the policy goal of preserving and protecting the competitive process as a guide, and evaluates competition law and policy found around the world for diverse perspectives. He identifies and evaluates controls beyond conventional competition rules and makes recommendations for competition policy, including focus on limiting the emergence of undue buyer power, strict controls limiting the size of legitimate buyer groups, prohibition in most instances of buyer cartels, and strict standards to bar mergers creating buyer power to provide a set of policies that can constrain the risks of undue buyer power. Competition law scholars, competition law practitioners, staff of competition enforcement agencies, economists interested in competition policy, and agricultural economists interested in market systems will all find this book a strong resource.

Twenty years of experience have inevitably brought to light challenges and tensions in the enforcement of the European merger control system. Some of these challenges have been faced, some have been solved and some remain latent. This very valuable study starts from the proposition that the EU has never fully acknowledged those fundamental challenges which relate to the rationale behind merger control in Europe. The author shows how the Commission's focus on adapting the rules of merger control to the economic realities of the future business environment, although designed with a view to facilitating European integration, has compromised attainment of legal certainty, transparency and welfare enhancement. In its detailed evaluation of the 'future market structure prediction process' embedded in European merger control policy, this book approaches two rock-bottom, far-reaching questions: In what ways does merger control promote consumer and societal welfare? Is the Commission able to correctly predict the outcome of any given concentration transaction? These considerations take the reader through a deep and searching analysis that calls into question the very credibility and transparency of the system, leading to alternatives which promise a new clarity of purpose and procedure. The author describes how these recommendations can be integrated into the functioning framework of the European project. Taken fully into account along the way is a wide spectrum of relevant source material, including the following: applicable articles and chapters of the founding and subsequent European Treaties; secondary European legislation concerning competition and merger activity; domestic competition laws; guidelines, notices and action plans; competition law reviews, statements of intentions; draft legislative attempts; speeches on the enactment and purpose of merger control; Member States' views concerning European merger control as expressed during Council negotiations; officially available concentration-related statistics; and a wide-ranging literature review covering both the legal and economic sides of merger control. Throughout, the author substantiates theoretical assertions with case law examples, clearly exposing doctrines arising from such cases as Continental Can, Phillip Morris/Rothmans and the Airtours, Schneider and Tetra Laval trilogy. A unique feature of the analysis draws on the author's personal experience while working for a Brussels competition law firm. This book is a remarkable compound of academic guide to the roots and rationales of the European Merger Control System, practical guide to the day-to-day intricacies of merger control enforcement, and 'raw' guide for decision makers and merger control law enforcers. It will be of immense value in all three contexts.