B. Baarsma

Beleidseconomie: Een rationele onderbouwing van overheidsingrijpen

De aanleg van de Noord-Zuidlijn in Amsterdam was een foute beslissing. De beslissing over de aanbesteding van thuiszorg had volgens de Tweede Kamer niet de gewenste resultaten. Twee voorbeelden uit een lange reeks beleidsbeslissingen die beter hadden gekund. Het is onmogelijk om alle verkeerde beslissingen uit te bannen, maar het is wel mogelijk om beslissingen beter voor te bereiden. Beleidseconomie helpt bij het nemen van betere beslissingen, omdat ze de vraag beantwoordt wanneer ingrijpen nodig is om een publiek belang te borgen. Ook brengt ze de maatschappelijke kosten en baten in kaart, zodat alleen gekozen wordt voor beleid met een positief saldo voor de samenleving. De samenleving moet steeds opnieuw kiezen tussen wat aan de markt kan worden overgelaten en wat de overheid naar zich toe moet halen. Beleidseconomie is als een landmeter die de grens trekt tussen markt en overheid.

Rewriting European Competition Law from an Economic Perspective

This article discusses the goal of EU competition law, which consists of three main pillars.1 Of these, two prohibition rules set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) cover the antitrust area. First, agreements between two or more firms which restrict competition are prohibited by Article 101 of the Treaty. Secondly, firms in a dominant position may not abuse that position (Article 102 TFEU). In addition to these two antitrust laws, there is also the merger regulation (EC 139/2004).2 The goal of competition law varies depending on the perspective taken. From an economic perspective the goal is the protection of consumer welfare, while from a legal perspective the goal is the protection of competition. This difference between the economic and legal perspectives with respect to the goal of competition law has been analysed in the literature. Parret takes a legal perspective and concludes that most lawyers tend to focus on the law as it stands or as it has evolved over time in legislation and jurisprudence, rather than stepping back and questioning what the law is actually attempting to achieve.3 However, this view is currently changing and according to Parret this is for the better. She refers not only to a broadening of the goal to welfare protection, but also to a wide set of goals: “The system of European competition law has always had and still has different objectives: economic and non-economic objectives, political and social objectives, legal objectives. A unitary goal is not desirable and not realistic.”4 Edlin and Farrell take an economic perspective in their analysis of the goal of competition law and state that welfare protection

Measuring the Welfare Effects of Public Television

ABSTRACT Based on an explorative case study in the Netherlands, the authors developed a methodology to assess the welfare effects of public service broadcasting. This methodology consists of a combination of revealed and stated preferences, using readily available data for all programs broadcast in the evening in 2011. The results cover both individual programs and an aggregate level. Because the data used encompass both public and commercial programs, the analysis allows for comparisons between these.

Compliance with cartel laws and the determinants of deterrence - an empirical investigation

ABSTRACT This paper empirically investigates the drivers of compliance to cartel law and deterrence properties of enforcement tools with conjoint firm-level online survey data from the Netherlands. Compliance is measured by a response to varying hypothetical cartel scenarios. Respondents were asked to indicate the likelihood on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) that they would end a cartel that they discovered within their organization. The personal fine for the manager and the fine for the company have a statistically significant deterrent effect. Firm size, publicity following an infringement and the leniency program have no significant effect on compliance. For the most deterring scenario, the probability of a fully compliant outcome (defined as likelihood equal to 10) is estimated at .68. Self-reported knowledge of cartel law, having a compliance officer and the habit to consult a lawyer on competition law matters are statistically significant drivers of compliance.

Moeilijke marktwerking en meedogenloze mededinging : Een welvaartseconomisch perspectief

Marktwerking - de markt aan het werk - is een middel om welvaart te verhogen. Een middel dat vaak werkt, maar ook faalt. Op dit moment is marktwerking dusdanig gepolitiseerd dat het een door moralisme overgoten modegril is geworden. In tegenstelling tot de mens is de markt echter moreel noch immoreel. En de eigenschappen van marktwerking zijn tijdloos. De enige manier om het marktwerkingsbeleid te objectiveren, is het met welvaartseconomische argumenten te onderbouwen. Een essentiele voorwaarde voor marktwerking is mededinging. Het mededingingsrecht verbiedt beperking van de concurrentie door bijvoorbeeld kartels of fusies. Net als bij marktwerking is het doel van mededinging het vergroten van de welvaart, of eigenlijk de welvaart van consumenten. Dit welvaartscriterium komt echter niet voor in het mededingingsrecht. Formeel-juridische criteria spelen daardoor een hoofdrol in de toepassing van het mededingingsrecht. Barbara Baarsma stelt dat een wetswijziging nodig is om verdere juridisering te stoppen. Hierdoor zou het welvaartseconomische criterium de plek krijgen die het in het mededingingsrecht verdient.

Bank competition and the transmission of unconventional monetary policy in the euro area

ABSTRACT We analyse the relation between bank competition and the transmission of unconventional monetary policy (UMP) for 14 European countries. We estimate an error-correction model to analyse the relation between the pass-through of UMP to long-term commercial interest rates and the level of competitiveness. We estimate this model for three different measures: the Herfindahl Index (HHI), the Boone indicator and the H-statistic. Our results indicate that bank concentration as measured by the HHI is not a good proxy of competitive conditions in the market, whereas the other two measures are more meaningful in this context. The pass-through of UMP is increasing in the degree of bank competition as measured by the Boone indicator and the H-statistic. The relationship between pass-through and the level of market concentration is less well defined, suggesting that competition and market concentration do not go hand in hand in the banking sector.

A veritable tower of Babel: on the confusion between the legal and economic interpretations of Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

The current system of exemptions from the cartel prohibition (Article 101(3) TFEU) is a veritable tower of Babel. For one, there is a considerable confusion of tongues between jurists and economists on the goal of competition law. Moreover, the European Commissions Guidelines on the application of the cartel prohibition explain the law differently from what is apparent from the case law. This economic paper aims to reduce the confusion of tongues by answering questions such as: what is consumer welfare, what is public interest, and should non-competition public interests be included in the assessment of competition cases? Actual cases are used to show the terminology of competition and other public interests. We develop a framework for balancing the economic benefits produced by restrictive agreements against the restrictive effects of these agreements.