One of the most controversial questions in current competition policy is when, if ever, should competition law require a firm with market power to share its property, notably intellectual property, with its rivals?  And if supply is required, on what terms?  These questions are discussed with...

The Sotheby`s/Christie`s price-fixing scandal that ended in the public trial of Alfred Taubman provides a unique window on a number of key economic and antitrust policy issues related to the use of the auction system. The trial provided detailed evidence as to how the price fixing worked, and...

This paper discusses the incentive to bundle when consumer valuations are non-additive and/or when products are supplied by separate sellers.  Whether integrated or separate, a firm has an incentive to introduce a bundle discount when demand for the bundle is more elastic than the overall...

The paper offers an economic appraisal of selected aspects of EC law and policy towards abuse of dominance (Article 82). After a brief discussion of thresholds for dominance, five theories of exclusionary harm to compeptition are outlined, concerning: predatory pricing, partial exclusion to...

This paper analyses how competition over rebates for customer loyalty across product lines affects firms` pricing and consumers generally. If buyers incur firm specific costs or have shop specific tastes then competitive loyalty discounts lower consumer surplus overall and raise profits - the...

Mixed bundling in imperfectly competitive industries causes some prices to rise and others to fall. This paper studies under what conditions mixed bundling works for or against the consumer interest. We find that if buyers incur firm specific costs or have shop specific tastes then competitive...

The most important issues in auction design are the traditional concerns of competition policy-preventing collusive, predatory, and entry deterring behaviour. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems (we discuss radiospectrum and football TV-rights...

We construct a unique panel dataset to examine how R&D and intellectual property (IP), via patents and trade marks, increase firm productivity. Knowledge has public good characteristics of non-depletability and non-excludability. Even with IP, imitation and inventing around other firm`s products...

This paper explores whether the patent law and intellectual property rights (IPR) system have resulted in innovation in China during the reform period. It appears that the patent laws have produced a stock of patents, where the success rates of patent applications are fairly uniform across the...

This paper surveys empirical studies employing trade mark data that exist in the economic literature to date.  Section 1) documents the use of trade marks by firms in several advanced countries including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, 2) reviews different attempts to gauge...