https://hdl.handle.net/10419/166 2026-10-23T08:56:44Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/29856 Title: European system of private laws : an economic perspective Authors: Kerber, Wolfgang 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/29873 Title: Monoculture versus Diversity in Competition Economics Authors: Budzinski, Oliver Abstract: Economics rightfully represents the major basis for competition policy. Next to generating knowledge about competition and its welfare effects, the currently popular more-economic approach is charged with a number of additional hopes and expectations, leading to a reduction of the ambiguities of real-world competition policy. While this article highlights the benefits of economicsbased competition policy, it takes a cautious stance towards excessive expectations in particular regarding the idea that a monocultural, unified competition theory as an exact, objective, and unerring scientific approach to antitrust makes normative assessment and generalizations superfluous. In a combination of two lines of argumentation, diversity in competition economics is advocated. Firstly, competition economics is empirically characterized by a considerable pluralism of theories and policy paradigms. This includes deviating views on core concepts like the nature of competition, the meaning of efficiency, or the goals of antitrust. Secondly, it is demonstrated that diversity of theories represents no imperfection of the state of science. In contrast, it is theoretically beneficial for future scientific progress. Therefore, no ultimate competition theory can ever be expected. As a consequence, the more-economic approach must be extended in order to embrace diversity. This does not decrease its meaning and importance but instead puts some of the related high hopes into perspective. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/29848 Title: Unmasking mutual recognition : current inconsistencies and future chances Authors: Kerber, Wolfgang; Bergh, Roger van den Abstract: The principle of 'mutual recognition' is almost universally acclaimed for removing barriers to trade (e.g., within the EU), for enabling regulatory competition, and for preserving scope for regulatory autonomy instead of embarking on a path to harmonisation and centralisation. Through the analysis of the application of 'mutual recognition' within the EU (by using economic theories of legal federalism and regulatory competition), we show that this principle leads to a number of serious inconsistencies and problems, which question its suitability as a conflict of law rule that leads to a stable allocation of regulatory powers within a two-level system of regulations. 'Mutual recognition' should be understood more as a dynamic principle, which triggers a reshuffling of regulatory powers between different jurisdictional levels. It leads either back to the country of destination principle, to a free (internal) market for regulations, or to harmonisation and centralisation. In particular, the European experiences suggest that the introduction of a regime of 'mutual recognition' seems to be primarily another path to convergence and harmonisation instead of being an instrument that preserves decentralised regulatory powers or even regulatory competition. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/29888 Title: Implications of unprofitable horizontal mergers : a re-interpretation of the Farrell-shapiro-Framework Authors: Budzinski, Oliver; Kretschmer, Jürgen-Peter Abstract: We demonstrate that the popular Farrell-Shapiro-framework (FSF) for the analysis of mergers in oligopolies relies regarding its policy conclusions sensitively on the assumption that rational agents will only propose privately profitable mergers. If this assumption held, a positive external effect of a proposed merger would represent a sufficient condition to allow the merger. However, the empirical picture on mergers and acquisitions reveals a significant share of unprofitable mergers and economic theory, moreover, demonstrates that privately unprofitable mergers can be the result of rational action. Therefore, we extend the FSF by explicitly allowing for unprofitable mergers to occur with some frequency. This exerts a considerable impact on merger policy conclusions: while several insights of the original FSF are corroborated (f.i. efficiency defence), a positive external effect does not represent a sufficient condition for the allowance of a merger anymore. Applying such a rule would cause a considerable amount of false positives. In addition, we conclude that the FSF need to be explicitly complemented by a freedom of competition principle in order to make it workable as a basis for an economics-based merger policy. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z