In this empirical study all mergers that have been challenged by the U.S. antitrust agencies FTC and DOJ between 1995 and 2008 were analyzed in regard to the question to what extent and how the agencies assessed the innovation effects of mergers. Theoretical background is the still open question...

Obwohl es dem Konzept des Soft Paternalismus gelang, die Aufmerk-samkeit auf die Bedeutung verhaltensökonomischer Erkenntnisse und die verhaltensbeein-flussende Wirkung von ‚weichen‘ Politikinstrumenten wie Default rules zu lenken, wird ge-zeigt, dass der Soft Paternalismus nur einen...

The vertical allocation of regulatory powers within the European two-level system of network sector regulation is analysed from the perspective of the economic theory of legal federalism. The analysis shows that sophisticated combinations of harmonised European rules along with sufficient scope...

Although both in US antitrust and European competition law there is a clear evolution to a much broader application of "rule of reason" (instead of per-se rules), there is also an increasing awareness of the problems of a case-by-case approach. The "error costs approach" (minimizing the sum of...