CPI 2(2)

State Efforts to Assist Competitors

Maureen Ohlhausen, Nov 01, 2006

Identifying, Challenging, and Assigning Political Responsibility for State Regulation Restricting Competition

This paper examines the role of competition advocacy in combating anticompetitive state regulation. Looking at the constraints facing competition officials such as the state action doctrine, the analysis suggests potential avenues for surmounting these constraints.

Frederic Jenny, Nov 01, 2006

The State Aid Action Plan: A Bold Move or a Timid Step in the Right Direction?

This paper analyzes the responses to the European Commission´s consultation document on State aid, presents the main areas of dissatisfaction, and the extent to which answers to the expressed dissatisfaction can be found in the State Aid Action Plan or the comments of Philip Lowe. The paper then explores the pros and cons of a decentralization of EC State aid policy.

Philip Lowe, Nov 01, 2006

Some Reflections on the European Commission´s State Aid Policy

This article first sets out the main economic and legal requirements for a competition enforcement system to be effective, as well as the main building blocks upon which the effectiveness of any such system depends.

Mathias Dewatripont, Nov 01, 2006

The Economics of State Aid Control: Some Remarks

This short comment discusses the rationale for State aid control at the level of the European Community and then turns to the State Aid Action Plan and its application to aid to Research, Development, and Innovation.

Peter Enrich, Nov 01, 2006

Commerce Clause Constraints on State Business Location Incentives

This article considers whether, and to what extent, the Commerce Clause limits the ability of states and localities to engage in the incentive competition that has proliferated in recent decades.

Nelson Jung, Alex Nourry, Nov 01, 2006

EU State Measures against Foreign Takeovers: Economic Patriotism in All but Name

This article examines the compatibility of special rights and other state measures with the EC´s single market objectives within the framework of the EC Treaty and their impact on foreign takeovers and investments.

Welfare Standards in Competition Policy

Ken Heyer, Nov 01, 2006

Welfare Standards and Merger Analysis: Why Not the Best?

The author argues for using the total welfare standard, rather than the more commonly employed consumer welfare standard. In doing so, Heyer responds to three broad objections that have been raised.

Joseph Farrell, Michael Katz, Nov 01, 2006

The Economics of Welfare Standards in Antitrust

There has been considerable debate concerning whether consumer surplus or total surplus should be the welfare standard for antitrust. This debate misses two critical issues.

From the Editor

Richard Schmalensee, Nov 01, 2006

From the Editor: Autumn 2006

Whose welfare should competition policy protect? That is the subject of the first two articles in our Autumn 2006 edition. The fact that a debate is even taking place over whether consumer or total (consumer plus producer) welfare is the right standard for competition policy is remarkable.

Current Cases

Richard Taranto, Nov 01, 2006

Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink: A Lawyer’s Take on Ending Special Suspicion of Patent Tying

The U.S. Supreme Court´s decision in Illinois Tool Works, Inc. v. Independent Ink, Inc., holds that a plaintiff, when asserting a tying claim under the familiar modified per se rule requiring market power for liability, must affirmatively prove such power even if the defendant owns a patent covering the tying product.

Book Reviews

Richard Whish, Nov 01, 2006

Review of O´Donoghue and Padilla, The Law and Economics of Article 82 EC

The extent to which EC competition law has been modernized in the last decade is really quite breathtaking. Most radical of all, perhaps, was the Modernization Regulation.

Randal Picker, Oct 30, 2006

Review of Hovenkamp, The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution

Herbert Hovenkamp has written a new single-volume overview of U.S. antitrust law titled The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution. Professor Randal Picker wrote a review of this book in the Autumn 2006 issue of CPI.

The Classics

Christian Ahlborn, Carsten Grave, Nov 01, 2006

Walter Eucken and Ordoliberalism: An Introduction from a Consumer Welfare Perspective

This article serves two purposes, (i) to introduce The Comparative Order and its Implementation, a seminal article published in 1949 by Walter Eucken, ordoliberalisms, or the Freiburg School´s, most prominent scholar, and (ii) to compare some ordoliberalist competition policy recommendations to those of a consumer welfare standard.

Nov 01, 2006

The Competitive Order and Its Implementation

This article was originally published as Walter Eucken, Die Wettbewerbsordnung und ihre Verwirklichung (The Competitive Order and Its Implementation), 2 ORDO, JAHRBUCH FR DIE ORDNUNG VON WIRTSCHAFT UND GESELLSCHAFT 1-99 (1949). This is the English translation by Christian Ahlborn and Carsten Grave of Linklaters.