Market concentration often leads to unnecessarily high prices and reduced innovation. European merger control positively affects competition and productivity, though not yet perfectly effectively. In times of increased market concentration, merger control needs to be enforced even more...

The collective sale of football broadcasting rights constitutes a cartel, which, in the European Union, is only allowed if it complies with a number of conditions and obligations, inter alia, partial unbundling and the no-single-buyer rule. These regulations were defined with traditional...

Digitization has changed economic activity in many ways. While digitization has contributed to a very dynamic development of markets and competition, concerns are also being expressed about powerful positions of some companies. The digital transformation poses new challenges for companies,...

We investigate whether and how economic integration increases state capacity. This important relationship has not been studied in detail so far. We put together a conceptual framework to guide our analysis that highlights what we call the Montesquieu, Weber and Smith channels. Each of these...

The ubiquitous process of digitization changes economic competition on markets in several ways and leads to the emergence of new business models. The increasing roles of digital platforms as well as data-driven markets represent two relevant examples. These developments challenge competition...

We model merger control procedures as a process of sequential acquisition of information in which mergers can be cleared after a first phase of investigation. We find that the enforceability of clearance decisions at the end of the first phase is unattractive to the extent that it prevents the...

Reforms of financial regulation after the crisis of 2007-2009 raise the question of what is the relation between financial regulators and competition authorities. Should competition authorities play a role in financial regulation? Should they co-operate with financial regulators? Or should they...