Anti-competitive mergers benefit competitors more than the merging firms. We show that such externalities reduce firms' incentives to merge (a hold-up mechanism). Firms delay merger proposals, thereby foregoing valuable profits and hoping other firms will merge instead - a war of attrition. The...

Abstract Analyses of European integration processes are still dominated by the dichotomous debate between intergovernmentalism and supranationalism. Sides are often taken in this debate based on very case-specific empirical findings. An analysis of two cases, European telecommunications and...

AbstractThis paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about the scope for autonomous action of supranational organizations in the European Union, focussing on the European Commission. In the literature, the independence of the Commission is frequently questioned, while the relative autonomy...

This paper investigates the effect of merger-driven market concentration on the mark-ups of non-merging rival firms in Europe's paper manufacturing industry. Using a representative data set of 400 independently-owned companies spanning a ten-year period, we aim to disentangle the impact of...

This paper investigates the effects of trade reforms and antitrust enforcement on the pricing behavior of firms, shedding light on the respective contributions of these policy instruments to the shaping of competitive markets. To this end, we use a rich panel data set of more than 25,000...

Though the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) has failed, the original draft is likely to serve as a basis for future negotiations. This article gives a critical assessment of the draft from an industrial economics point of view. First, I summarize the contents of the agreement which is...

This paper traces the development of the liberalisation process in Indonesia and its contribution to improving the competitiveness of Indonesia's industry. Indonesia has been actively liberalising its trade unilaterally, multilaterally under the WTO, and regionally with APEC and AFTA. The crisis...

Vietnam stands at an important crossroad in its transition from a planned to market-oriented economy. Since the implementation of economic reform starting with Doi Moi in 1986, supplemented with further reform from 1989, the economy experienced rapid economic growth during the period of the...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the European Commission's approach to state aid for foreign direct investment in a competition policy framework. The Commission shows to consider variable cost aid (VCA) to be more distortive than start-up or fixed cost aid (FCA). This paper addresses that...

We study the rationale for the use of exclusivity to protect transfer of technology in subcontracting agreements. The legal possibility arises through the EU Notice on Subcontracting. Empirically, the link between exclusive agreements and technology transfer among firms in the automotive supply...