International Competition Policy

Full course description

The course starts with an overview of international antitrust institutions, thereby covering the major systems of competition policy in the EU and the US, as well as suggested or recently implemented frameworks in developing countries and transition economies. We will continue with a theoretical and empirical identification of market power – a necessary condition for any anticompetitive practice. The following sessions will provide an economic analysis of the major fields of competition policy such as the fight against collusion, merger regulation, and the abuse of a dominant position. For each field we will apply modern theories of strategic firm behaviour to explain when and why firms indeed act in an anticompetitive way. These insights are then utilized to develop guidelines for antitrust authorities. Finally, these recommendations are taken as a benchmark for an evaluation of existing antitrust policy schemes. The course will make excessive use of case studies to illustrate and test the policy recommendations.