On 18 April, Bruegel hosted a Competition Policy Lab. Competition Policy Labs offer an independent ‘hands-on’ platform for practitioners and academics to meet and discuss hot topics on the competition policy agenda. This time we had Anna Vernet and Luc Peeperkorn for the Commission, and Jacques Crémer from the Toulouse School of Economics. Read more
Bruegel blog
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The new competition rules for technology transfer agreements
6th May 2013
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European Emission trading - A blueprint for a countercyclical policy without teeth
11th April 2013
Carbon emissions have been falling, but perhaps not for the most sustainable reasons. The graphs below show volumes of carbon emissions produced by the European industrial sector. Read more
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Blogs review: Big Data, aggregates and individuals
26th March 2013
What’s at stake: The Big Data enthusiasts compare it to a revolution. For the agnostic observer, it is interesting to move beyond this general and somewhat speculative discussion and get a sense of what these massive quantities of information produced by and about people, things, and their interactions can and cannot do. Read more
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Electricity Infrastructure – more border crossings or a borderless Europe?
27th February 2013
Enabling the seamless trade in electricity across borders would help to deliver on all three European energy policy targets – security, sustainability and competitiveness. Security would be increased because local supply shortages can be addressed by importing electricity from elsewhere. A larger-than-national market would mean that competition between national energy companies should lead to increases in efficiency and reductions in prices. Finally, in a European market, intermittent supply of energy from local renewable sources can be reliably averaged across wide geographic areas, reducing the need (and thus costs) of back-up capacity and system-stabilising services. Read more
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The implications of Asia’s scientific rise
25th February 2013
A previous article in this newsletter (issue 3, December 2012) demonstrated how selected Asian governments have come to view science as integral to economic growth, and have consequently taken steps to develop their science infrastructures. This holds most for China, but is also true for Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. The rise of new emerging science powerhouses in Asia provokes the question of what the impact will be on science. In particular, does a shift of scientific power to Asia mean that the flows of scientific talent from east to west will dry up, and are Asian scientific centres new cooperation partners in science for the west? Read more
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Competition policy trends in South Korea
20th February 2013
Economists often talk about a strong correlation between market development and enforcement of competition policy rules. That is not surprising: competition policy aims at removing obstacles to economic activity, such as barriers to market entry, and it encourages new businesses to challenge incumbent players’ market power. Economic theory suggests that this dynamic brings about an increase in total production. It also suggests that the pressure from competition can trigger a ‘Darwinian selection’, so that firms are forced to be as efficient as possible if they want to survive in the market. This generally means lower production costs, higher quality and lower prices paid by consumers. Conversely, in specific circumstances, excessive competitive pressure may reduce incentives to invest (reducing profit expectations); and therefore, slow down the growth pace. Read more
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Standard-setting abuse: the case for antitrust control
7th February 2013
The issue: Standards reduce production costs and increase the value of products to consumers. Think about mobile phones: using the same technology allows anybody who owns a mobile phone to call or be called by any other mobile phone owner. The bigger the network, the better for consumers. Read more
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The world innovation landscape: Asia rising?
5th February 2013
Global growth in research and development has been vigorous, with both public and private R&D investment increasing and growing more rapidly outside the previously dominant centres of North America, Europe and Japan. The counties with the largest R&D spends are the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, China and South Korea. These seven countries account for about 71 percent of worldwide R&D expenditure. Read more
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UPS-TNT: the eternal struggle between harm and efficiencies
30th January 2013
After Olympic/Aegean and Deutsche Börse/NYSE, today’s decision on UPS/TNT is Joaquin Almunia’s third merger prohibition since he became the European Union's competition chief in 2010. Mr Almunia’s predecessor as competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, ended her five-year mandate having barred two mergers. Read more
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Blogs review: A bird’s eye view on Bruegel’s research in the crisis
25th January 2013
What’s at stake: On 22 January 2003, the idea of setting up what would become Bruegel had been given a strong impetus by the Chirac-Schröder declaration issued on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty. Ten years after that first impulse, Bruegel has been ranked as 1st think-tank in Western Europe, 2nd outside the US, and 1st worldwide in International Economic Policy in the 2012 Global Go To Think Tanks Report. In the spirit of the Stability and Growth Pact, we decided to grant an exception the rules governing our blogs review and survey some of our very own publications for those of you (especially in the blogosphere since we were pretty late at joining the dance) who may have missed these. Read more