Since the mid-1990s, competition in the Austrian product markets has become markedly more vigorous, driven by "externally induced" competition-oriented structural reforms. In terms of product market regulation, Austria ranks in the middle range in international comparisons. Same as other...

With the amendment to the cartel law in 2002, a new institutional basis had been established for competition policy in Austria. Responding to domestic and European pressure to reform, legislators provided the groundwork for setting up the Federal Competition Authority and Federal Cartel...

The Amendment to the Competition Act entering into force on 1 March 2013 provides the legal groundwork for competition monitoring as an additional responsibility to be performed by the Austrian Competition Authority. Legislators have been sparing in prescribing any specific design. Such leeway...

Any analysis which limits the causes of the financial and economic crisis to either market failure or to the failure of the state can only be viewed as superficial. The causes are rather a combination of both these factors. Had there been a more clearly defined division between the role of the...

The current Austrian antitrust law regime has been in force for six years. Experience so far has clearly brought to the fore the strengths and weaknesses of the institutional setup and procedures in place, from which a need for reform may be derived. The latter arises largely from the fact that...

With price inflation on the increase since the autumn of 2007, competition policy has re-emerged as a subject of interest in Austria for both economic-policy makers and the public at large. In this context, possibilities may arise for more stringent enforcement of competition law as well as the...

The 2002 amendment of the Cartel and Competition Act introduced a fundamental change in the institutional landscape of Austrian competition policy. Apart from reorganising the institutional level, it will, however, be necessary to overhaul the contents side as well. The fundamentals of a...

This paper argues that the accession to the European Union improves the quality of competition policy via the implementation of pro-competitive policies, especially antitrust and competition policies, embedded in the Community Acquis. We assess this conjecture empirically for the (former)...