The course is an introduction into the objectives and implementations of Competition Policy. Students will be introduced to antitrust institutions all over the world with some emphasise on the European Union, its member states, and the US. Participants will learn how to evaluate the goals and their legal implementation from an economic point of view. Such an (empirical and theoretical) economic analysis enables participants to criticize existing Competition Law and to suggest improvements. These findings will be applied to landmark antitrust cases and ongoing controversies among competition policy scholars.

The course starts with an overview of international antitrust institutions, thereby covering the major systems of competition policy in the EU and the US, as well as suggested or recently implemented frameworks in developing countries and transition economies. We will continue with a theoretical and empirical identification of market power – a necessary condition for any anticompetitive practice. The following sessions will provide an economic analysis of the major fields of competition policy such as the fight against collusion, merger regulation, and the abuse of a dominant position. For each field we will apply modern theories of strategic firm behaviour to explain when and why firms indeed act in an anticompetitive way. These insights are then utilized to develop guidelines for antitrust authorities. Finally, these recommendations are taken as a benchmark for an evaluation of existing antitrust policy schemes. The course will make excessive use of case studies to illustrate and test the policy recommendations.

Motta, Competition Policy, Cambridge University Press.
Case Descriptions, Documentations of Legal Frameworks, and Research Papers.

• Courses 1.2 and 2.1 in microeconomics.
• Knowledge and understanding of microeconomics (level comparable to: course Microeconomics ).
• Exchange students need a major in economics.
• An advanced level of English.