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Master
Class with Mike Walker This specialized and intensive one-and-a-half-day course concentrates on advanced issues in European competition law enforcement. The course covers a number of topics currently hotly debated in Europe, such as issues on the effect of the new merger standard, Article 82, vertical mergers, the use of empirical analysis in competition cases, and methods to assess damages in private litigation. Coverage will be self-contained and based on Dr. Walker's hands-on experience as one of Europe's leading competition consultants. The contents will be targeted at a specialized audience of economists, competition lawyers and policy makers interested in competition policy and its enforcement. Included in the discussions will be the broad theoretical framework to gain an understanding of the various types of conduct and their anti-competitive consequences, and presentation of facts and figures and some legal issues. The course will also be a rich source of research ideas for PhD students in Economics, and Law & Economics scholars. For further information and registration click here. Research and Education
Day ENCORE has taken the initiative to found StudIO, an organization for students who take a special interest in Industrial Organization (IO). In order to celebrate the birth of StudIO, ENCORE organizes the Research & Education Day 2007. Students from universities in The Netherlands and Flanders are invited to participate in a program of presentations and discussions, for example on the European Commission Decisions on Competition: Landmark Cases from an Economic Point of View, a handbook on applied IO. Several governmental institutions will join the discussions or sketch career perspective for IO professionals. Students interested in participating can still register at the ENCORE website. For further information and registration click here. Plea Bargaining
in the EC Competition Law System The European Commission currently discusses the introduction of procedural instruments of direct settlements in European Competition Law Enforcement. The envisaged system is inspired by what in the US is known as plea bargaining , yet takes into due consideration the substantial and procedural differences between the two legal systems. The reforms are aimed at enhancing quick and efficient enforcement of EC Competition Law, based on experiences in US antitrust enforcement. Various questions arising from the introduction of direct settlements are hotly debated. To what extent would European direct settlements be comparable to the US plea bargaining system? What possibilities do parties to an agreement have to negotiate and commit to deals? Will the bargains be struck by the same individuals, or even the same agencies, that determine fines and amnesty? What would be the impact on the system of competition law enforcement in Europe? Do direct settlements form a risk of excessive lobbying and non-transparent decision-making? Are there potential problems of effectiveness with the leniency programs? Do the potential benefits of savings on enforcement costs weigh against the likely costs? In this workshop, the contours and various implications of introducing plea bargaining-type instruments in Europe are discussed by two experts. The first speaker is Ewoud Sakkers , Head of Unit within the directorate F (cartels) at DG Competition of the European Commission and actively involved in the creation and implementation of the European policy on cartels and the enforcement thereof. The second is Martijn Snoep , partner at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and specialized in Dutch as well as international competition law. There will be ample opportunity for discussion with the floor. To view the full program click here. ENCORE Summer
School Principles – competitive markets, competition and regulation In this one-week intensive summer school, participants will acquire the essential knowledge needed to understand economic analyses of imperfect competitive markets, such as describing the market structure, determining a relevant market and defining economic welfare. This introduction covers basic theory of three different market forms: monopoly, perfect competition and oligopoly. In addition, the economic foundations of several types of strategic behavior, such as cartels, price discrimination, predation, investments in research and development, and mergers. In the second part of the course, the role of government institutions in the economic market process is discussed. Is the government able to improve competition and welfare in imperfectly competing markets? When, for instance, should the government start the transfer of a public service through liberalization and privatization to a competitive market? And how should it shape such regulation? Regulation subjects to be discussed are the principal-agent relation between regulators and market parties, benchmarking, transition problems that occur during the transfer of a monopolistic public company to an effective free market, and the regulation of access to monopolistic networks. For the full program, fee and registration click here (complete text available in Dutch only).
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ENCORE is proud to welcome the following new fellows to its network: Jeffrey R. Church has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. (Honours) in Economics from the University of Calgary. He was the 1995-1996 T. D. MacDonald Chair in Industrial Economics at the Canadian Competition Bureau. His published research includes articles on merger simulation, network economics, strategic competition, entry deterrence, intellectual property rights, and competition policy. He is the coauthor of a book on the regulation of natural gas pipelines in Canada, a text in industrial organization, and a monograph for the European Commission on the competitive impacts of vertical and conglomerate mergers. He has acted as an expert on regulatory and competition policy matters. Vincenzo Denicolò is Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna. He was Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (1996-97) and Visiting Professor at the European University Institute (1998). His main fields of research are the theory of social choice and the theory of industrial organization. Professor Denicolo is widely published in economic journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics , the Journal of Economic Theory and the RAND Journal of Economics , on various issues including economic aspects of intellectual property right. Victor Ginsburgh is honorary Professor of Economics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles , and co-director of ECARES in Brussels. He wrote and edited a dozen of books (among which The Structure of Applied General Equilibrium with M. Keyzer) and is the author and coauthor of over 150 papers in applied and theoretical economics, including industrial organization and general equilibrium analysis. His recent work includes the economics of the arts, wines and languages. His papers have appeared in American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Review, Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of Cultural Economics and many other journals. He is coeditor (with David Throsby) of the Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006). For an overview of the fellows and the application procedure, click here.
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Assessment
of Non-horizontal Concentrations The European Commission recently published draft guidelines on the assessment of non-horizontal mergers, for the purpose of public consultation. In this workshop ENCORE looked at several questions arising from this subject. Is it possible to formulate an all-inclusive economic analytical framework on this subject? What classification to apply to the possible non-coordinated effects? What is there to learn from case law, including Tetra, Schneider and GE/Honeywell? What are the consequences of non-horizontal integration at essential facilities, the split-legislation at energy and railway? The draft Commission notice was discussed upon introductions by two key contributors to the European debate. Paul Lugard (Philips International BV) layed out the legal context for the control of non-horizontal mergers in Europe. Jeffrey Church (University of Calgary) presented theoretical and empirical economic analysis of non-horizontal concentrations, based on his founding study for the EC. Floris Vogelaar (University of Amsterdam) and Maarten Janssen (Erasmus University Rotterdam) opened the discussion with the floor in this workshop chaired by Maarten Pieter Schinkel (Universiteit van Amsterdam). ENCORE Annual Conference By choosing ‘CREATIVITY AND COMPETITION' as the topic of this year's annual conference, ENCORE stimulated a lively discussion between academics, policy makers and market supervisors on issues fundamental to the working of markets. Bernard J. Phillips (OECD) opened the conference with an outline of recent OECD work on competition and innovation. Subsequently, this year's ENCORE Thesis Prizes, chosen from a large number of high quality submissions, were distributed by the chairman of the jury, Marcel Canoy (Bureau of European Policy Advisers). In the afternoon, in three parallel sessions debate was focussed on three selected topics: competition in ads and arts (chaired by Wim Driehuis), dissemination of knowledge and competition (chaired by Maarten Pieter Schinkel), and creativity and intellectual property rights (chaired by Jeroen Hinloopen). Presentations in these sessions were made by Jan Willem Sieburgh (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), Michael Wise (OECD), Victor Ginzburgh (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Marcel Canoy (Bureau of European Policy Advisers) and Vincenzo Denicolò (University of Bologna). Greg Clydesdale (Massey University, New Zealand) concluded the day with a presentation of his recent work on creativity and long-run competition, based on a detailed case study of the creative competitive process amongst the members of the British band The Beatles. The theses were richly illustrated by sound and video bites that showed how competition acted on the quality of the final Beatles products. For an overview of the papers, presentations and pictures of the conference click here. Preston McAfee – brown bag American Airlines changes fares 500,000 times per day. Gasoline varies as much as 15¢ per gallon over a two mile drive. How do companies determine prices? The main theory involves price discrimination, or value-based pricing, which involves charging each consumer what the market will bear. Sophisticated sellers create goods designed for specific groups of customers, selling intentionally damaged products to price-sensitive groups. The theory is illustrated with striking examples from IBM, airlines and more. Grocery stores advertise sale prices on milk, paper towels, cola and other items, even though the demand and cost of production didn't change. Why? Why are turkeys cheapest just before Thanksgiving, a time when demand is highest? These paradoxes have a common resolution. This brown bag byPreston McAfee (J. Stanley Johnson Professor of Business, Economics & Management, and also executive officer for the social sciences, at Caltech) covered recent research in several papers and had competition-related implications on these pricing issues. Participation was by invitation only. European Regulation on State Aid and
National Interest - brainstorm The European Commission's State Aid Action Plan (SAAP), launched in the Summer of 2005, induced a shift away from the legal, form-based approach towards a more economic, effects-based approach to state aid control. The so-called “refined economic approach” seeks to balance the costs and benefits of state aid by answering the following questions: • Is the state aid measure aimed at correcting a market failure? • Is the state aid measure the appropriate tool for correcting the market failure? • What is the effect of the state aid measure on competition? A well-targeted aid measure with limited negative effects on competition can pass the test when its benefits (i.e., correction of market failure) outweigh its costs (i.e., distortion of competition). In this ENCORE brainstorm Rainer Nitsche (CRA International) presented his ‘Study on methods to analyze the impact of State aid on competition' with Paul Heidhues (University of Bonn) for the European Commission. This study underlies the Commission's refined economic approach. Edwin Schotanus (Van Doorne NV) discussed the current status of State rules for SGEI and the effects that different definitions of SG(E)I may have on competition by means of a case study. Participation was by invitation only. Summer School "Antitrust for Networks" The University of Verona organizes its second Summer School on antitrust for networks in Italy. Lecturers: Neil Gandal, Massimo Motta, Giancarlo Spagnolo. For further information, click here. For details and registration, click here.
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