The model of perfect competition is one of the most famous, most important, and most misunderstood concepts in economics. Rather than aiming to be a full-blown model of real-world competitive markets, the perfect competition model isolates the decentralized coordination mechanism inherent in all...

This volume brings together the statements delivered during a discussion forum organized by the Austrian Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labour. A number of articles deal with competition policies on the EU and national levels. They include an introductory statement by Nobel Laureate Joseph E....

This paper gives a fresh account of competition in the digital economy. Economic analysis in the field of industrial organization remains largely focused on a sophisticated version of the Schumpeter-Arrow debate, which is unresolved and largely irrelevant. We posit the need to look at...

The question of how interventions from the Competition Authority (CA) affect investment is not a straightforward one: a tougher competition policy might, by reducing the ability to exert market power, either stimulate firms to invest more to counter the restrictions on their actions, or make...

Technological innovation is changing private markets around the world. New advances in digital technology have created new opportunities for subtle and evasive forms of anticompetitive behavior by private firms. But some of these same technological advances could also help antitrust regulators...

This paper analyzes optimal pricing for access to essential facilities in a competitive environment. The focus is on investment incentive issues arising from regulation under complete information. To that end, examining the provision of a natural monopoly infrastructure with unlimited capacity,...

This paper examines infrastructure investment incentives under a system of "regulation by negotiation." Abstracting away from the competitive implications of alternative access regimes, we demonstrate that an appropriately specified access pricing rule can induce private firms to choose to...

This paper investigates policy responses to investment issues that arise when owners of essential facilities are subject to open access from downstream competitors. Our focus is not on the form of access pricing per se but on issues associated with regulatory commitment when there is ex ante...

This paper studies manipulation in cash-settled derivative contract markets. When traders hedge factor risk using cash-settled derivatives, which are settled based on the price of a spot good, traders can manipulate settlement prices by trading the spot good. In equilibrium, manipulation can...