Bertin Martens
Bertin Martens is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He has been working on digital economy issues, including e-commerce, geo-blocking, digital copyright and media, online platforms and data markets and regulation, as senior economist at the Joint Research Centre (Seville) of the European Commission, for more than a decade until April 2022. Prior to that, he was deputy chief economist for trade policy at the European Commission, and held various other assignments in the international economic policy domain. He is currently a non-resident research fellow at the Tilburg Law & Economics Centre (TILEC) at Tilburg University (Netherlands).
His current research interests focus on economic and regulatory issues in digital data markets and online platforms, the impact of digital technology on institutions in society and, more broadly, the long-term evolution of knowledge accumulation and transmission systems in human societies. Institutions are tools to organise information flows. When digital technologies change information costs and distribution channels, institutional and organisational borderlines will shift.
He holds a PhD in economics from the Free University of Brussels.
Disclosure of interests
Featured work
EU Tech Rules: What to make of the first DMA fines?
How Brussels can regulate big tech in a time of trade wars
EU targeting of digital services in tariff retaliation would present challenges
The European Union lacks an instrument to unpick cross-border transactions on US digital platforms
A planned code of practice would reinforce the EU’s artificial intelligence copyright problem
The European Union is continuing to unnecessarily restrict access to copyright-protected content for AI model training
How DeepSeek has changed artificial intelligence and what it means for Europe
This Policy Brief analyses innovations in AI models over the past half year and examines the economic implications for AI companies and policymakers
Updated assessment: Memo to the commissioner responsible for digital affairs
How can the EU harness data as an economic production factor?
Using data as a production factor: policy ideas for a new EU data strategy
How should the EU go about designing a data-market regime that maximises the efficient use of data as an economic production factor?
Catch-up with the US or prosper below the tech frontier? An EU artificial intelligence strategy
This Policy Brief explores why EU AI investment has fallen behind the US and the types of market failure that may have led to that situation
How should the EU position itself in the AI technology race?
The tension between exploding AI investment costs and slow productivity growth
This working paper explores the tension between rapidly increasing artificial intelligence investment costs and the slower pace of productivity growth
Draghi disappoints on digital
The Draghi report’s emphasis on hardware and telecoms is out of touch with modern digital developments
Bruegel Annual Meetings | 4-5 September 2024
This year's Annual Meetings centered around the launch of the Bruegel Memos to the European Union leadership 2024-2029
Memo to the commissioner responsible for digital affairs
Why artificial intelligence is creating fundamental challenges for competition policy
This Policy Brief examines competition-reducing market-entry barriers in each segment in the AI value chain
Talks@Bruegel: China's tech regulations and global tech rivalry with Angela Zhang
How China governs Big Tech and regulates Artificial Intelligence?
Research, innovation and data: a fifth freedom in the EU single market?
Research and innovation should be at the top of the EU economic policy agenda, but cannot over-rely on public investment
Do EU tech rules add up?
Mapping out the EU’s digital agenda
Why should EU copyright protection be reduced to realise the innovation benefits of Generative AI?
Economic arguments in favour of reducing copyright protection for generative AI inputs and outputs
The licensing of training inputs slows down economic growth compared to what it could be with competitive and high-quality GenAI
The EU Artificial Intelligence Act: premature or precocious regulation?
The European Union AI Act: premature or precocious regulation?
As it stands, it is unknown whether the Act will stimulate responsible AI use or smother innovation.
The complexities of AI regulation
How to balance legal certainty with evolving technology and international competition?
Are new EU data market regulations coherent and efficient?
Technical restrictions on access to and re-use of data may result in failures in data markets and data-driven services markets.
The turmoil at OpenAI reveals underlying structural tensions in the AI industry
The competitive nature of the industry means highly skilled employees present the ultimate resource scarcity for AI development.
Is the EU Copyright Directive still fit for purpose in the age of generative AI?
How should policy makers balance copyright protection and innovation in the era of Generative AI?
Talks@Bruegel: Gatekeepers in the Digital Markets Act with Fiona Scott Morton
Invitation-only event featuring Fiona Scott Morton who will talk about Core Platform Services and their obligations
Bruegel Annual Meetings, 6-7 September 2023
A symphony in progress: shaping a new agenda for Europe
What should be done about Google’s quasi-monopoly in search?
What should be done about Google’s quasi-monopoly in search? Mandatory data sharing versus AI-driven technological competition
This paper explores the crucial role of search engines in modern digital economies and their impact on user welfare.
European Commission antitrust case targets Google’s dominance of online ad-space buying
The European Commission for the first time is considering forcing Google to divest part of its advertising services.
How does the EU Data Act aim to promote competition in data markets?
Has the Digital Markets Act got it wrong on app stores?
The app-store obligations in the European Union’s Digital Markets Act are unlikely to weaken the market power of Apple and Google.
Pro- and anti-competitive provisions in the proposed European Union Data Act
This paper explores several pro- and anti-competitive provisions included the proposed EU Data Act.
How to fix the European Union’s proposed Data Act
The proposed EU Data Act on industrial and non-personal data should be simpler and clearer, or the benefits could be limited.
The European Health Data Space
Can the EU Data Act deliver a fair, competitive and innovative data market?
This event will discuss the EU data Act, with a particular focus on B2B and B2C data sharing
'In Situ' Data Rights
Privacy empowers individuals to control what is gathered and who sees it; portability permits analysis and creates competition. By moving our data to
Towards efficient information sharing in network markets
In this paper, we turn our attention to market failure due to information asymmetry between platforms and their users and between competing platforms.
Civil society for the digital age
What is the place of civil society in the digital age as well as the role of technology in society?
Geo-blocking in the digital single market
Geo-blocking is a discriminatory practice that is wide-spread in EU. It prevents online customers from accessing and purchasing products or services f