Conferences on New Political Economy

Over the past ten years, European competition policy has undergone dramatic change, largely inspired by the European Commission´s move towards a more economics-based approach. A more economic approach to the application of competition law means that the assessment of each specific case will not be undertaken on the basis of the form or intrinsic nature of a particular practice but rather will be based on a careful examination and weighing of its anti- and pro-competitive effects. This move to an effects-based approach will lead itself to a rule of reason approach in antitrust proceedings, and efficiency as a goal of antitrust can be expected to play a more important role in the future. While economic reasoning is becoming increasingly common in the study of substantive antitrust, little attention has been devoted to procedural and enforcement issues.
In this volume, economists and lawyers both from academia and practice investigate a number of basic questions concerning the law and economics of antitrust enforcement.Dieter Schmidtchen: Introduction - Christian Kirchner: Goals of Antitrust and Competition Law Revisited - Roger van den Bergh: The 'More Economic Approach' and the Pluralist Tradition of European Competition Law (Comment) - Wulf-Henning Roth: The »More Economic Approach« and the Rule of Law - Roland Kirstein: »More« and »Even more Economic Approach« (Comment) - Clifford Jones: The Second Devolution of European Competition Law. The Political Economy of Antitrust Enforcement Under a 'More Economic Approach' - Stefan Voigt: »More Economic« Does Not Necessarily Mean »Better«. Perils and Pitfalls of the »More Economic Approach« as Recommended by the European Commission (Comment) - Wernhard Möschel: Should Private Enforcement of Competition Law Be Strengthened? - Gerhard Wagner: Should Private Enforcement of Competition Law Be Strengthened? (Comment) - Maarten Pieter Schinkel: Effective Cartel Enforcement in Europe - Paul Heidhues: On the Economic Theory of Illegal Collusive Activity (Comment) - Hans W. Friederiszick and Frank P. Maier -Rigaud: The Role of Economics in Cartel Detection in Europe - Christian Koboldt: Searching Where the Light is Brightest (Comment) - Wouter P.J. Wils: Leniency in Antitrust Enforcement: Theory and Practice - Michele Polo: Leniency in Antitrust Enforcement: Theory and Practice (Comment) - Tomaso Duso, Klaus Gugler and Burcin Yurtoglu: The Effectiveness of Remedies in European Merger Control - Wolfgang Kerber: Measuring the Effectiveness and/or the Predictability of European Merger Control: Problems of an Event Study (Comment) - Daniel L. Rubinfeld: Empirical Methods in Antitrust: New Developments in Merger Simulation - Roy J. Epstein and Daniel L. Rubinfeld: Merger Simulation: A Simplified Approach with New Applications - Christian Wey: Empirical Methods in Antitrust: New Developments in Merger Simulations (Comment) - Rainer Nitsche and Paul Heidhues: Comments on State Aid Reform. Some Implications of an Effects-based Approach - Justus Haucap: The More Economic Approach to State Aid Control. A New Institutional Economics Perspective (Comment)