In the past 20 years, large digital platforms have made many acquisitions, mainly young and innovative startups. Few of them have been reviewed by competition authorities and little is known on their evolution after acquisition. This paper intends to fill in this gap by looking at the development of the technologies owned by the acquired firms. We focus on technologies protected by a patent and we investigate whether an acquisition by a big tech contributes to their development. For this analysis, we use patent citations as a proxy for the innovation effort by the acquirer. Our main result is to show that acquisition increases the innovation effort of the acquirer but only temporarily. After 1.5 year, there is no longer a significant impact of the acquisition on the acquirer's innovation effort. This decline is relatively larger when the acquired patent belongs to a core technology field of the acquiring firm or to a large patent portfolio. On the contrary, citations by the rest of the industry are not negatively affected by acquisition, which does not corroborate the idea that the acquired technology has reached its maturity.

Prosumers and consumers can form together a renewable energy community (REC). Prosumers sell their production surplus to the community, which stores it or resells it to the members. To become a member, prosumers and consumers have to pay an entry fee to finance the community's assets, a battery in our example, and the management costs. Members can then buy electricity at a discounted price compared to the retail price and prosumers can sell their electricity at a premium price compared to the market price. The community should decide on those internal prices and on a sharing rule to allocate the collective self-consumption among members. In this paper, we analyze the role of prices and sharing rules to identify the communities that are feasible and the resulting allocation of the surplus among members. Depending on its objective, the REC can try to achieve an equitable allocation of the benefits among members or an efficient allocation. We use a numerical example to illustrate the resulting individual benefits for different prices and sharing rules.

Renewable energy communities involve various agents who decide to jointly invest in renewable production units and storage. This paper examines how these communities interact with the energy system and can decrease its overall cost. First, we show that a renewable energy community can contribute positively to welfare if the electricity produced by the investment is consumed close to its place of production, i.e. if the community has a high degree of self-consumption. Second, our analysis identifies the condition on prices and grid tariffs to align the community's interest with welfare maximization. We also show that some of these grid tariffs do not have a negative impact on non-members of the community and could therefore limit potential distributional issues. Third, we argue that various internal organization of the renewable energy communities are feasible. The internal organization impacts the distribution of benefits among members but not the global efficiency of the community.

The electricity sector in East Africa is characterized by high levels of electricity losses while regulatory policies have been implemented in order to reduce these losses. Generally, such policies modify the inputs, (for instance higher transmission capacity), the outputs (for instance improved billing), or the technologies. In this paper, we tackle the electricity loss reduction question under a new angle by estimating minimal electricity losses. These minimal electricity losses are computed non-parametrically maintaining the inputs, the outputs, and the technologies constant. Minimal losses are then compared to actual losses to construct quality performance indicators. Our main result is to show that on average, for given electricity generation processes, electricity losses could be reduced by 8%, representing approximately $60 millions of yearly savings.

The shape of the firm size distribution (FSD) looks similar in all market economies but its approximation by a parametric distribution, a necessary information to build a general model of firm dynamics, remains much debated. In this paper, we use an exclusive comprehensive database on Belgian firms. We show that the lognormal distribution is a better approximation of the empirical FSD than the power law distribution. This result holds true at the aggregate, sectoral and regional levels.

This paper studies the factors influencing the adoption of digital technologies in the manufacturing sector; the so called Industry 4.0 phenomenon. We focus on the adoption of three particular technologies (Predictive Maintenance, Smart Production and Advanced Planning) in the Belgian region of Wallonia. In line with the claims of related qualitative studies, our findings suggest that smaller firms, which have a more restricted access to financial resources, are less prone to adopt these technologies. Our results are compatible with the notion that more digitally mature firms are more prone to be adopters. Moreover, we do not find evidence supporting the claim that more profitable firms are more likely to be adopters. Finally, we present indicative evidence regarding the efficacy of the regional governmental program which aimed to increase the diffusion of Industry 4.0.

We analyze the political impact of a generous solar panel subsidization program. Subsidies far exceeded their social benefit and were partly financed by new taxes to adopters and by electricity surcharges to all consumers. We use local panel data from Belgium and find a decrease in votes for government parties in municipalities with high adoption rates. This shows that the voters' punishment for a costly policy exceeded a potential reward by adopters who received the generous subsidies. Further analysis indicates that punishment mainly comes from non-adopters, who change their vote towards anti-establishment parties.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth study of deindustrialization and to systematically analyze the reasons why the world’s most economically successful countries have experienced a sharp decline in relative manufacturing employment over the last decades. A large strand of empirical literature on deindustrialization aims at quantifying the relative importance of the economic forces behind deindustrialization, especially of the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ factors. While this study does not contradict the widespread belief that internal factors are quantitatively more important in explaining deindustrialization in advanced countries taken as a whole, our results, based on both static and dynamic techniques and panel data on 18 OECD countries from 1977 to 2007, however suggest that the role of globalization may be revised upwards when resorting to appropriate and well-defined indicators of trade in manufactures.

This paper seeks to ascertain whether Google’s Android licensing terms, which are currently under scrutiny from the European Commission, could be excused under an innovation defense framework. The paper starts by analyzing Google’s business model with regard to its Android OS. It then identifies the Commission’s main concerns. It argues that Google is simply pursuing a sensible appropriation strategy. Finally, it puts forward a framework which hinges on the concept of “appropriability”, and tentatively applies it to Google’s behavior.

In the last years, some Standard-Setting Organizations (“SSOs”) active in wireless communications have experimented new pricing principles for standard essential patents (“SEPs”). One of those experiments is the “SSPPU” rule. Under SSPPU, the licensing rates paid to owners of SEPs for the use of their technology shall reflect the “value that the functionality of the claimed invention or inventive feature…contributes to the value of the relevant functionality of the smallest saleable Compliant Implementation that practices the Essential Patent Claim”. This paper reviews the SSPPU experiment through the lenses of the Coase theorem. It finds that SSPPU interferes with the efficient operation of the price system, and is likely to reduce investment in socially beneficial activities, including in General Purpose Technologies (“GPTs”) which are key drivers of economic growth.

Enthused by China’s conversion to the free market system in 1978 and its adoption of Western-style market institutions, the world has spent the last few decades turning a blind eye to China’s real “governance” problem: that a shadow Party-State system permeates all branches of the economy. Whatever Washington-consensus style institutions are put in place, whatever State Owned Enterprise (“SOE”) reform is introduced, corporate and market governance occur under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”). And the CCP’s guidebook is the Leninist command that the whole of society shall be run as “single country-wide State syndicate”. This paper contends that China’s syndicated economic organization is akin to a “supertrust”, and that this creates conditions that are conducive to antitrust problems to which the Western world must awaken. In this context, this paper advances that the antitrust regulators of North America, Europe and elsewhere should take two simple, pragmatic steps under merger control and antitrust rules. In merger review, antitrust agencies should treat all SOEs and Privately Owned Enterprises (POEs) with a CCP cell as one unitary group and undertake a thorough competitive assessment of transactions on this basis. In addition, antitrust cases involving Chinese firms should be investigated on the default assumption that there is an underlying coordination scheme among them.

The main goal of this paper is to provide an integrated overview of the literature devoted to identifying the causes of the British industrial revolution. Why did the industrial revolution, a fascinating and multifaceted event which brought about modern economic growth, occur in eighteenth-century Britain? This question has animated a lot of discussions among scholars and is still nowadays heatedly debated in the literature. This debate is reflected in the large spectrum of theories which aim at explaining the true origins of the British industrialization. The paper first sheds light on a rising debate concerning the evolution of British incomes per capita before the British industrial revolution and the “Great Divergence”. The paper then investigates the proposed causes of the British industrialization, aggregating them into seven broad categories, i.e. (1) geography and natural resources, (2) demography, (3) agricultural progress, (4) demand-side factors, (5) trade and empire, (6) institutional and political factors, (7) science, technology, and human capital.

This paper shows that the European Union (EU) courts' case-law and general principles of EU law place the European Commission (“Commission”) under a duty to apply the Guidance Communication on Enforcement Priorities (“Guidance Paper”) in abuse of dominance cases started after its adoption. This duty includes the obligation to test Article 102 TFEU cases under the As Efficient Competitor (“AEC”) framework, as set out in the 2009 Guidance Paper. The judgments handed down by the Union courts in Intel v Commission and Post Danmark II do not alter in any way the Commission’s “self binding” duty to apply the Guidance Paper. If the Commission wishes to depart from the AEC framework, it must officially withdraw its Guidance Paper.

This short paper offers a first analysis of the UEFA's "break even requirement" under the EU competition rules. It shows that there are good reasons to believe that the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulation violates Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, in particular because it limits investments in the sense of Article 101(1) b) TFEU and in turn risks ossifying the market structure to the benefit of a tight oligopoly of football clubs.

The award of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Professor Jean Tirole in 2014 has generated intense interest about his brainchild theory of two-sided markets. Against this background, this paper explores whether there is such a thing as a unified theory of two-sided markets and whether the two-sided markets literature can readily be applied by antitrust agencies, regulatory authorities and courts. This paper vindicates caution. The buzz surrounding two-sided markets could mask the fact that, in many cases, the policy implications of the theory are not yet clear, and that divergences among its proponents are often underplayed. In that regard, the paper notably stresses that one of the key conditions of market two-sidedness identified by Rochet and Tirole in their seminal paper of 2003 – the unavailability of Coasian bargaining between both sides of a platform – has often disappeared from subsequent scholarship. This omission threatens the coherent implementation of the theory of two-sided markets. Without this qualification, markets are often mischaracterized as two-sided, as soon as they display prima facie signs of indirect network externalities.

This short paper offers a first analysis of the UEFA's "break even requirement" under the EU competition rules. It shows that there are good reasons to believe that the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulation violates Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, in particular because it limits investments in the sense of Article 101(1) b) TFEU and in turn risks ossifying the market structure to the benefit of a tight oligopoly of football clubs.

This paper discusses challenges for competition authorities in the 21st century. Those challenges were identified on the basis of a statistical review of the articles published since January 2011 in five major antitrust law journals. The assumption underlying this literature review is that the topics that statistically attract the most the attention from contemporary antitrust scholars are those that will likely constitute the main challenges for 21st century competition authorities.

Ever since the creation of the General Court (“GC”), the effectiveness of judicial review in European Union (“EU”) competition cases has sparked intense scholarly debates. This paper seeks to further contribute to this discussion in three ways. First, it devotes some space to fundamental, yet often overlooked questions, such as the goals or functions of judicial review and why judicial review of administrative decisions is important; particularly so in competition law matters. Second, this paper attempts to throw some empirical light on the GC’s judicial review of European Commission (“Commission”) decisions in the field of competition law. Third, it places a specific emphasis on the particular situation of abuse of dominance law, where the GC has exercised its judicial review power with more restraint than in other areas of competition law (such as restrictive agreements and mergers). With these goals in mind, this paper follows a five-stage progression. First, on the basis of a survey of the relevant legal, economic and political science literature, it defines the functions of judicial review and identifies a set of indicators which can be used to assess the performance of the GC’s judicial scrutiny (Part I). Second, it explains why judicial review in EU competition law cases is of critical importance notably given the institutional and procedural deficiencies of the EU enforcement structure (Part II). Third, it discusses the nature and standard of review currently applied by the GC with a particular focus on the degree to which the GC is willing to review “complex economic matters” (Part III). Fourth, it provides some quantitative data on the case-law of the GC to assess whether several goals or functions attributed to judicial review by the scientific literature are met (Part IV). Finally, this paper takes a closer look at the (controversial) case-law of the GC in the field of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) (Part V).

This paper attempts to demonstrate that whilst parallel trade (also referred to as “grey market trade” in the United States, or as “arbitrage” in economic theory) in the European Union is subject to a remarkably favourable legal regime, the economic case supporting this approach remains to be made. To this end, it shows that the position of the EU Courts, and more generally of the EU institutions, is far from unquestionable in light of the relevant economic literature.

To date, the European Commission has not yet made use of the novel guidance instruments established under Regulation 1/2003 (Article 10 inapplicability decisions, guidance letters, etc.), or taken any exemption decision pursuant to Article 81(3). The "brave new world" of Regulation 1/2003 is thus a competition enforcement system devoid of individual guidance and positive decisions. That is not to say, however, that firms have been left without formal guidance. In early 2004, the Commission issued Guidelines on Article 81(3), which set out the methodological and substantive framework for the self-assessment of agreements under Article 81(3). The present paper paper offers a critical review of those Guidelines and explains why, in practice, firms and their counsels have repeatedly argued that this text is unpractical and thus of little use.

The present paper reviews in a plain language and with only limited statistical formalization, the virtues of econometrics in the field of competition law. Following a brief introduction to the origins of econometrics, we explain first that econometrics provides assistance to decision-making in a variety of fields (merger control, abuse of dominance, etc.). Second, we show that econometrics also constitute a decision-reading instrument, which may assist competition agencies, courts, firms and their counsels in understanding the content of the law. The econometric models discussed in the paper are illustrated by examples coming from well-known legal cases. Our conclusion is that in light of the novel sophisticated issues arising in antitrust enforcement (damages estimation, etc.), the nascent "econometrics of competition law" exhibit promising features.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the risks that result from the mushrooming of regulatory authorities at the national level alongside the increased reliance on national competition authorities in the EC. Both sets of institutions have, to a certain extent, overlapping duties and competences. Therefore, they become increasingly procedural subsitutes for complainants. To avoid the risks of multiple proceedings and regulatory inconsistencies between the two sets of bodies, a variety of mechanisms have been adopted at the EC and national levels. The paper seeks to provide a brief account of these mechanisms and to show that they do not eradicate the risks of multiple proceedings.