35 research outputs found
The economic analysis of state aid: Some open questions
Get PDFThe last few years have seen both a significant shift in EU state aid policy towards a more sophisticated economic approach and a great enrichment of the economic literature on state aid. This paper examines the control of state aid in the EU in the light of the new literature. It begins with a discussion of the objectives of state aid control, taking account of the principle of subsidiarity. We discuss whether state aid control should concentrate on limiting the effects of aid on trade and competition (i.e. harm to rivals) or whether the purpose is broader and includes also considerations such as avoiding government failures and encouraging Member States to use state aid more sparingly and target it more efficiently. This leads to a brief analysis of how the appropriate welfare standard to be applied in state aid control would vary according to the weight given to different objectives. The paper then considers the objectives pursued by governments in granting aid with particular emphasis on the concept of market failure. The nature and magnitude of the market failure addressed by a state aid, together with the design of the aid, will strongly influence the extent of any anti-competitive effects. The last two parts (4 and 5) of the paper are devoted to specific problems of assessing anti-competitive effects using the types of information normally available to the aid-granting authorities and the European Commission. Part 4 discusses the problem of assessing the effects on competition of aid schemes and broad classes of aid, when the beneficiaries and even the affected markets are not known. Because Member States grant a vast number of individual aids every year, the Commission has to apply simple criteria to screen out those aids that are unlikely to have significant anti-competitive effects. We survey a range of indicators that can be used for this purpose and conclude that they all have drawbacks. Part 5 deals with the problems of assessing individual awards of aid which have failed the screening test, discussing how the main characteristics of firms (e.g. market share, vertical integration) and markets (such as product differentiation and market growth) may influence a state aid's impact on competition. Keywords: European Union, state aid, subsidies, competition policy.European Union, state aid, subsidies, competition policy, Buelens, Garnier, Meiklejohn, Johnson
Barring dangerous speech declared wrong by author
No full textHortense Binderup reviews the ideas of Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn in his new book about free speech and self-government. Dr. Meiklejohn believes that no censorship should exist in a democracy, and that the power of public intelligence is enough. The author notes that the thoughts put forward in this book do not go along with the current political actions of the FBI and House Un-American Activities Committee. The author agrees with the ideas put forth in the book
European merger control: Do we need an efficiency defence?
No full text'It is an interesting and valuable contribution to the competition literature. It brings together in one place the arguments, both theoretical and empirical, in favour of the introduction of an efficiencies defence. the book is a very helpful reference on the consequences of mergers, and on the nature and source of efficiency benefits, particularly economies of scale. The papers that comprise this book are a rewarding read both for competition lawyers and for economists. Further, although the discussion of efficiencies is directed towards assessment of merger issues, it has wider application, especially in relation to vertical restraints.' © European Communities, 2006. All rights reserved.SCOPUS: bk.binfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
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European merger control ::do we need an efficiency defence? /
No full textThis book examines the background to a change in the legal framework which occurred in May 2004 with the entry into force of a new Merger Regulation that for the first time explicitly recognises the possibility of an efficiency defence. European Merger Control assesses the likely impact of this new regulation, and discusses the pros and cons of the efficiency defence, how other merger control systems deal with efficiencies, how the investigation process can be organised to accommodate the analysis of efficiency gains and the main theoretical and practical problems which arise when anti-competitive effects have to be weighed against efficiency gains
Recommended from our members
European merger control ::do we need an efficiency defence? /
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