This paper summarizes the peculiarities of online markets and discusses recent antitrust cases related to online markets. Following a brief description of the online markets' characteristics and potential tendencies for concentration the paper first discusses the antitrust allegations and...

We investigate the effect of an EU-wide consumer protection regulation on consumer trust as well as consumer behavior. The Unfair Commercial Practice Directive (UCPD) was implemented by EU member states between 2007 and 2010. We utilize data from the Special and Flash Eurobarometer for the years...

We analyze the behavior of 577 economics and law students in a simple binary trust experiment. While economists are both significantly less trusting and less trustworthy than law students, this difference is largely due to differences between female law and economics students. While female law...

This paper estimates demand elasticities for the Turkish mobile telecommunication market. In contrast to most other studies, firm level data is used to estimate dynamic panel data models including instrumental variable techniques. Both short- and long-run elasticities are calculated, yielding a...

The German reserve power market was subject to important regulatory changes in recent years. A new market design was created by synchronization and interconnection of the four control areas. In this paper, we analyze whether or not the reforms led to lower prices for minute reserve power (MRP)....

It is a persistent phenomenon in many societies that a large proportion of alcohol consumption takes place in company of other people. While the phenomenon of social or public drinking is well discussed in disciplines as social psychology and anthropology, economists have paid little attention...

This paper analyses the extent of inter-format retail competition between supermarkets, discounters and drugstores in Germany, using data from the German market for diapers. We estimate a random coefficient logit model at the individual household level. Based on consumer substitution patterns,...

This paper discusses the general characteristics of online markets from a competition theory perspective and the implications for competition policy. Three important Internet markets are analyzed in more detail: search engines, online auction platforms, and social networks. Given the high level...

Traditional economic theory of collusion assumed that cartels are inherently unstable, and yet some manage to operate for years or even decades. While the literature has presented several determinants of cartel stability, the vast majority focuses on firms as entities, even though cartels are...