Institute of Economics

Current Topics

  • Participation privileges are given due to the principle of "first come, first serve". Please register yourself per e-mail to Martin Kies. We need the following data:
    • Pre- and surname
    • Course of studies
    • Whether you want to participate in the Masters oder the Bachelors seminar.
  • The date of presentation is 2015-06-19. The final timetable will be published at the start of the semester.
  • Please register via moodle.

Basic Information

In this seminar you (and a possible partner) will chose a competition case investigated by the European Commission. Your task is to present this case, to analyse it and discuss it from an economic point of view.

This seminar is available for all students of a bachelors course in Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsmathematik, Wirtschaftsphysik and Wirtschaftschemie. This seminar can be claimed as an elective subject in Economics and regarding the specialisation module Economics (6 credit points). If you are a student of amaster course, you may have a look at the seminar advanced topics in competition policy.

This seminar will be done in teams of two. You may chose your partner as you wish. If you refrain from doing so, we will group you.

Find, choose and register a case

  • Here you can find an overview about the antitrust cases of the European Commission and additional important basics: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/overview_en.html
  • To find a case start with the following webpage of the European Commission, where you can find settled competition cases: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?clear=1&policy_area_id=1
  • It is possible to search for several criteria. I advice the following settings:
    • Under "Policy Area" choose "Antitrust / Cartels" (From an economic point of view the antitrust cases are the more interesting ones)
    • In the field "Document Type" under "Antitrust Advanced Search" check the following lines: "Commitment Decisions" all three lines with "Prohibitions Decisions". This way you find cases in which a certain kind of anti-competitive behavior has been prohibited or the European Commission imposed additional requirements on the companies.
    • Afterwards press "Search"
  • Now you see a list with several competition cases. The name of the case typically contains the names of one or more involved companies. By pressing the button "Show Details", you see a list with corresponding documents. The elaborate decision can typically be found in the document  "Commitment Decisions" or "Prohibitions Decisions". In some cases the documents are multilingual (e.g. if a German company is involved, a German transcript is typically provided), while in other cases only English documents are attainable.

Note, that you may not use a case out of the list of forbidden cases:  http://goo.gl/E0gZdp. You may neither use cases which are discussed in the Motta (see literature). This explicitely holds for the case of Lagnese-Iglo and General-Electric. Additionally you should not use cases which are virtually identical or very similar to cases you may not use. To be safe, you should send an E-Mail to Martin Kies including a link to the case and a short (selfwritten) summary about it. Naturally you should also refrain from using a case which is already taken (http://goo.gl/2H7UmU).

  • On the Webpage of the European Commission you can find a link to a data base with older competition cases, with some of them are being pretty interesting. http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/index.html
  • Regarding older cases, you should stick to those marked as  "Commitment Decisions" or "Prohibitions Decisions".
  • The length of the decision varies significantly between 10 and up to 500 pages. If you pick a very long case, as the big Intel case, you should focus on certain parts of the case, both in presentation and thesis.
  • Upon deciding which case you want to analyze, please register via the following form: http://goo.gl/dDR58q

Requirements to get credits

In order to successfully complete the seminar, to you have to do a presentation of your competition case and a subsequent discussion. 

Regarding the presentation:

  • 50% - 75% Description of the case and the decision: Explain well the main aspects and background
  • 25% - 50% Own contribution
    • A contribution that goes beyond the description of the content of the EU commission's decisions
    • Examples for own contribution
      • Brief description of an economic model dealing with one aspect of the cases (e.g. exclusive dealing, predatory pricing, bundling & tying, price discrimination, cartel formation, etc) and discussion in how far the assumptions of the model fit to the current case. Motta's textbook (see below) can be very helpful.
      • Variation of point 1: Assume you are in the role of a consultant for the firm and based on an economic model you argue why the behavior of the firm should be allowed because it does not decrease total welfare. (Of course, you can also take an opposite position, e.g. in the role of a consultant of a damaged customer.)
      • You compare the case with a related competition case and discuss the differences in the economic sitution, firm behavior and decision.
  • Last slide: A statement or question to the audience that can be used as starting point of a discussion

The presentation including the discussion should last around 50 minutes. More detailed information can be found in this guideline.

Literature

 Basic Literature with economic background information

 Competition Cases of the European Commission

Dates

Each participant is required to have at least one appointment with us. This appointment has to be at least four weeks prior to the date of the presentation. At this meeting you have to explain us your current concept regarding the chosen competition case. 

Lecturer: (Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kranz)

Teaching Assistants: (Daniel Blochinger, Martin Kies, Thomas Roscher)