Range of research topics

ENCORE's research program is updated regularly to keep track of new theoretical developments and recent policy issues in the area of competition and regulation. Suggestions for the latest update were made at the first ENCORE Council of Economic Advisors which took place on 17 May 2004. The 2005 council meeting has just taken place (10 June); a new update will soon appear on this website.

Inventory of research themes and topics

Seven research themes are presented, each subdivided in specific research topics. The topics provide a further specification of the themes. All these research topics should be treated as possible sources from which in the next year subject can be chosen for position papers and workshops.

1. Evaluation of competition and regulatory policies

There exist an urgent need among policy makers to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of competition and regulatory policies, both ex ante (i.e. predicting expected effectiveness before enacting a rule or regulation) and ex post (measuring observed effectiveness after the rule or regulation has been imposed).

• Feasibility and methods of ex ante evaluations

• Methods of ex post evaluations

• Development of cost benefit technique

• Policy commitment issues (consistency over time)

2. Non neoclassical approaches to competition and welfare

Recently new approaches have been challenging the neoclassical hypothesis about the positive effect of effective competition on society's welfare. Also in practice introducing or increasing levels of competition does not always lead to obvious improvements in welfare levels. Non-canonical approaches to the relationship between competition and welfare might provide valuable theoretical and policy insights.

• Behavioral economics and non expected utility models

• Strategic Behavior

• Dynamic effects, innovation, high tech sectors, emerging markets

• Exemptions for small and medium business

• Anti competitive issues

• Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

3. Static versus dynamic efficiency

This concerns not only the identification and measurement of static and dynamic efficiency but also the trade-off, which is unavoidable in quite a number of settings such as when:

- regulating network industries

- evaluating concentrations

- considering anti trust issues in high-tech industries (such as Microsoft)

- measuring the benefits of competition/regulation for consumers

- analyzing patent and copyright law

4. Measuring and interpreting level and intensity of competition

Quite a number of problems in the regulation and competition policy area are concerned with evaluating the level and intensity of competition (or the lack of it). This broad research theme is concerned with how to measure and evaluate competition. This theme has already been the topic of Encore's annual conference in 2004. More specific topics under this heading are:

• methods for measuring or monitoring intensity of competition

• linking the lack of competition to the specification of competition policies and vice versa measuring the effects of competition- and regulatory policies on the intensity of competition

• find indicators which could reliably identify problem sectors

• measurement of cartel stability

5. Methodology

This is a catch all term to capture issues that are concerned with the methods of doing research or with methods of formulating policies. Specific topics under this label are:

• Usefulness of experimental economics for competition and regulation policies. Can new competition and regulation policies be tested in a controlled experimental laboratory environment? Can experiments be helpful with merger and acquisition cases and in other court cases?

• Social policy experiments: these consist of experiments settings for new policies which are tried out for real over a representative sample of the population during a certain period. The effects are measured and are used to evaluate the value of the policies before a full fledge policy initiative is taken for the total population

• Structural Empirical Industrial Organization (SEIO): this is a recent empirical IO method that could be exploited in policy settings

• The "afwegingskader" (for network and non-network industries) revisited

• Methods to evaluate competitions and regulatory policies such as leniency policies and sanctioning

6. Lack of data sources

A perennial problem of competition and regulation policies and evaluations is the lack of appropriate data sources to do the analysis. Encore could possibly play a role in improving or at least alleviating this situation.

• Availability of individual business data, consumer data and specific market data

• Data requirements to measure effectiveness of regulation and competition policies

• Data requirements to measure intensity of competition and to monitor markets

• Privacy problems

7. Practical policy issues

Finally a list of practical policy problems:

• Price regulation: why does price regulation (has to) differ between sectors?

• Cross subsidization

• Institutional aspects of regulators and competition authorities

• Transparency

• Competition in specific markets: health and care, electricity, financial sector

Workshop 2005

Previous workshops of ENCORE dealt with:

- Market transparency (June 2003)

- Design of regulation (October 2003)

- Managing transition (March 2004)

- Competition issues in two-sided markets (October 2004)

The topic of the February 2005 workshop was "Evaluation of Competition and Regulatory Policies". Both ex ante (before the introduction of the anti-trust or regulatore rule or measure) and ex post evaluations are interesting. Special attention should be paid to the usefulness of cost-benefit analysis in this context. More topics can be found above under the research theme with the same title.

> Click here for more information about this workshop.

Conference 2005

The topic for the 2004 ENCORE conference was 'Measuring Competition'. ENCORE's conference on 14 April 2005 dealt with the general problem of linking Welfare and Competition. The specific angle of this conference wasn't the neoclassical analysis of welfare and competition but contrary to that focus on non-canonical approaches to the relationship between welfare and competition. More detailed subjects for the conference day are mentioned under "Non-neoclassical approaches to competition and regulation policies", above.

> Click here for information about this conference.

Position Papers

ENCORE plans to commission a number of position papers from ENCORE fellows in the course of 2005. A position paper is defined as a brief 15 to 20 page review of developments in the scientific or policy field of industrial organization, competition or regulation economics.

Position papers will first of all be commissioned on the topics of the workshop and the annual conference .