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on Industrial Competition |
| By: | Breide, Lukas; Budzinski, Oliver; Mendelsohn, Juliane; Stöhr, Annika |
| Abstract: | This paper develops four proposals to modernize merger control in the European Union and beyond. First, merger control should be reinforced and reinvigorated to prevent the further rising of market power and to stop the ongoing decline of competition intensity. Second, the analysis highlights the need to incorporate systemic and cross-market power into both market definition and competitive assessment. Third, it challenges the traditional presumption that non-horizontal mergers are generally less harmful than horizontal ones, showing that vertical and conglomerate integration may reinforce ecosystem power and foreclose innovation. Finally, the paper proposes the use of rebuttable presumptions to address procedural asymmetries and under-enforcement. Together, these reforms would align merger control with contemporary economic research on digital ecosystems and enhance its capacity to safeguard contestability, innovation, and dynamic competition. |
| Keywords: | merger control, merger guidelines, concentration, systemic market power, digital ecosystems, competition policy, market definition, rebuttable presumptions, competitiveness |
| JEL: | K21 L40 L51 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343555 |
| By: | Hattori, Keisuke; Yoshikawa, Takeshi |
| Abstract: | Entry is commonly thought to harm incumbents in Cournot markets. This paper shows that this need not hold under coopetition. We analyze a two-stage Cournot oligopoly where symmetric firms first invest non-cooperatively in shared demand-expanding activities with non-excludable benefits and then compete in quantities. With convex production costs, entry can increase individual-firm profits despite intensified competition. We further show that this non-monotonicity can create a low-entry trap: no firm enters even though an active equilibrium would be profitable for firms and beneficial to consumers. Because the active equilibrium is self-sustaining, a finite one-time "big push" that assembles a critical mass of entrants suffices to escape the trap-whereas in a standard monotone market with unprofitable monopoly entry, every entrant would require support. The push can be implemented through transitional entry subsidies or coordinated public "seed" investment in the shared activity, and we characterize which instrument is cheaper and when each pays for itself in total surplus. |
| Keywords: | Coopetition, Profit-increasing entry, Critical mass, Low-entry trap, Cournot oligopoly |
| JEL: | D43 L13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:343408 |
| By: | Azinovic-Yang, Li; Kepler, John D.; Speros, Ava E.; Stewart, Christopher R. |
| Abstract: | We study how the durability of customer relationships shapes competition, innovation, and the allocation of economic activity. Using novel data from M&A accounting disclosures, we construct a forward-looking measure of customer durability based on firms' expected useful lives of their customer relationship-related intangible assets, covering nearly 9, 500 acquisitions and $8 trillion in assets from 2002 through 2024. We document a substantial rise in durability across industries and examine its implications in an endogenous growth model in which longer-lasting customer relationships amplify incumbents' market power. Empirically, greater durability is associated with higher markups and profit shares, increased concentration, reduced entry and exit, lower job reallocation, slower wage growth, and a declining labor share. Consistent with our model, we also find an inverted-U relationship between durability and innovation, with high durability reducing both the quantity and quality of innovation, partly through lower R&D investment. Taken together, our findings highlight rising customer durability as a novel mechanism that helps reconcile the simultaneous increase in market power and decline in U.S. business dynamism, with important implications for competition policy. |
| JEL: | L11 L25 L41 O31 E25 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cbscwp:343992 |
| By: | Xavier Giroud; Vrinda Mittal |
| Abstract: | Given the recent increase in concentration and the long-standing increase in income inequality in the U.S., it is crucial to understand how these two macro-wide phenomena are related. This technical note develops cross-sectional and time-series estimates of market power and inequality and describes correlations between the two. |
| Keywords: | ACS, LBDREV |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:tnotes:26-42 |
| By: | Hey, Florian; Budzinski, Oliver |
| Abstract: | We develop a sequential game-theoretic model to analyze the compliance incentives of digital gatekeepers under the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA). A gatekeeper chooses between full compliance and strategic compliance - a strategy of tactical, superficially lawful implementation that preserves a larger share of monopoly rents. The European Commission decides whether to accept the gatekeeper's compliance or initiate enforcement proceedings. Using backward induction, we show that in high-impact markets, the gatekeeper's equilibrium strategy is strategic compliance, investing in legal complexity to deter enforcement. In low-impact markets, full compliance is the equilibrium outcome. We extend the base model by endogenizing the Commission's enforcement incentives, modeled as increasing in the fine imposed, and derive conditions under which raising fines may paradoxically fail to induce full compliance. The model contributes to an emerging literature on regulatory compliance in digital markets and identifies the negotiation-oriented nature of DMA enforcement as a key determinant of strategic gatekeeper behavior. |
| Keywords: | antitrust, Digital Markets Act (DMA), gatekeeper, platform regulation, strategic compliance |
| JEL: | C72 K20 K21 L40 L51 L86 M21 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343557 |
| By: | Färber, Nina Lena; Hey, Florian |
| Abstract: | Article 5(2) of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) prohibits gatekeepers from combining personal data across core platform services unless end users consent within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This paper argues that importing the GDPR's consent standard into a competition-driven provision produces a structurally mismatched regulatory design. Drawing on competition economics, we examine the underlying data combination rent and show that this rent, rather than raw data volume, constitutes the primary source of gatekeeper dominance. This rent is economically ambivalent: pro-competitive where combined data improves products, anti-competitive where it serves surplus extraction. Yet Article 5(2) DMA faces user-related constraints for acknowledging its economic ambivalence, because it rather restricts what is harmful only conditionally. We demonstrate that consent, when applied in markets characterized by pronounced power asymmetries, generates predictable welfare losses: entrenching incumbents, fragmenting data ecosystems, and reducing consumer welfare without effectively constraining the rent it targets. In particular, we argue that data-based payment constitutes an economically distinctive mode of exchange that, unlike monetary payment, does not directly deplete disposable income. The resulting two-fold regulatory impasse implies that neither widespread consent nor widespread refusal advances market contestability or data sovereignty. In response, we assess alternatives, including data fiduciaries, data intermediaries, and portability-based data markets, that target the data combination rent more directly. None dominates on all margins. The choice among imperfect institutions is comparative. We conclude that, if data combination is to be governed at all, effective regulation requires instruments calibrated to the economic structure of data-driven markets rather than to the individual autonomy framework of data protection regulation. |
| Keywords: | Competition Policy, Consent, Data Combination, Data Sovereignty, Digital Markets Act (DMA), Gatekeepers, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Platform Regulation |
| JEL: | K21 L40 L51 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343556 |
| By: | Erol Taymaz (Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey); Kamil Yılmaz (Department of Economics, Koç University, İstanbul, Turkiye) |
| Abstract: | The employment effect of a minimum-wage increase depends on the wage-setting power of employers. The empirical literature, however, has measured this power only indirectly, through labor-market concentration. In this paper, we estimate firm-level product markups and wage markdowns for Turkish manufacturing firms using the Entrepreneur Information System (EIS) administrative micro-data. We show that a firm’s initial markdown predicts the sign and magnitude of its direct employment response to minimum-wage increases, including the exceptionally large January 2016 increase (33% nominal, ≈25% real). At minimum-wage firms with no markdown, employment falls year after year. At high-markdown firms that face the same wage floor, employment does not fall. The monopsony model can explain this difference, whereas the competitive model predicts employment losses for both groups of firms. Among firms paying the minimum wage, employment growth increases with the initial markdown in every year over 2013–2019: conditional on sector-year and province-year effects, high-markdown minimum-wage firms grow 6 to 9 log points faster annually than zero-markdown firms paying the same wage. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, monopsony, labor market power, markdowns, markups, employment, production function estimation, Turkey |
| JEL: | D24 J23 J31 J38 J42 L11 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:2605 |
| By: | Kok, Christoffer; Barquero, Javier Arranz; Bertelsen, Christian Hellum |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how bank capital conditions the effect of competition on credit risk in lending markets, informing the debate on banking competition, deregulation, and risk-based supervision. Using ECB supervisory data for 146 euro area banks across 19 countries over 2020Q2–2025Q3, we analyze whether this relationship depends on banks’ regulatory capital positions. We find that greater market power is associated with higher subsequent credit risk, while stronger capitalization is associated with lower risk. Crucially, competition reduces credit risk primarily for well-capitalized banks, whereas the effect is weak or absent for banks with lower capital ratios. By aligning the measurement of competition and risk with the pricing-based mechanism, the paper provides a direct empirical test of the borrower-risk channel and offers an explanation for mixed evidence in the competition–risk literature. The results highlight the importance of considering the interaction between competition and prudential capital requirements when assessing financial stability. JEL Classification: G21, G28, L11, C23 |
| Keywords: | bank capital, bank competition, borrower-risk channel, credit risk, financial stability |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20263285 |
| By: | Johannes Brinkmann (University of Warwick); Nikhil Datta (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Large supply shocks often raise concerns that retailers exploit rising costs to increase markups. We study the oil-price shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine using wholesale fuel prices, near-universe daily retail prices across Great Britain, and more than 200 million precisely geolocated searches from a major fuel-price comparison platform. Despite fuel prices rising by 37% over the preceding 21 months with essentially no change in search, the abrupt post invasion increase triggered a more than twentyfold surge in daily search while retail margins contracted sharply. An event-study design shows that this shock-induced search increase causally reduced retail prices and margins, with 95th- versus 5th-percentile exposure implying an 8% margin reduction at the peak. The implied loss to retailer margins peaked at £5.2million per week, around £650 per station. We rationalise these findings with a model in which large, rapid price increases raise consumer attention and price sensitivity, intensifying competition and compressing margins. More broadly, supply shocks can therefore change not only firms’ costs but also the demand conditions governing how those costs are passed through. Consistent with the model’s additional predictions, pass-through is approximately complete and symmetric before the invasion, but lower and temporarily exhibits a pronounced rockets-and-feathers pattern afterwards. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1627 |
| By: | Hey, Florian |
| Abstract: | The European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) introduces significant transparency obligations regarding price and performance measurement for digital gatekeepers. This paper provides a theoretical economic analysis of these provisions, evaluating them against the ongoing debate on whether advertising is welfare-enhancing (informative) or socially wasteful (persuasive). The analysis suggests that while the DMA effectively targets information asymmetries and the so-called ad tech tax to foster market contestability and fairness, it remains agnostic to the normative implications of the advertising model itself. The paper argues that by lowering costs for advertisers without addressing the persuasive nature of advertising, the regulation risks fueling a zero-sum game, leading to a higher equilibrium volume of socially wasteful advertising. Thus, the respective DMA rules contribute to rent redistribution within the advertising sector rather than mitigating the systematic inefficiencies of an over-advertised digital economy. This suggests that structural or fiscal alternatives may be more appropriate to resolve these issues and their wider implications for the digital economy. |
| Keywords: | Ad Tech, Competition Policy, Digital Markets Act (DMA), Digital Advertising, Gatekeepers, Platform Regulation, Welfare Economics |
| JEL: | K21 L40 L51 L86 M38 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343552 |
| By: | Budzinski, Oliver |
| Abstract: | Bereits seit einiger Zeit wird darüber diskutiert, ob die sog. 50plus1- Regel, mit welcher die Deutsche Fußball Liga die Ziele Vereinsprägung und Mitbestimmung im Profifußball erreichen möchte, konform zu den Wettbewerbsregeln ist oder einen wettbewerbsrechtlichen Verstoß darstellt. Dem entsprechend beschäftigt sich auch das Bundeskartellamt mit diesem Fall. Der vorliegende Beitrag fokussiert auf die Ausnahmen von der Regel und arbeitet aus (sport- und wettbewerbs-) ökonomischer Sicht heraus, dass selbst wenn man die 50plus1-Regel akzeptieren könnte, die relevanten Ausnahmen davon jedoch den Wettbewerb unbotmäßig verzerren würden. Angesichts der Zurückhaltung des Bundeskartellamts, hier mit einem formalen Beschluss zu intervenieren, untersucht der Beitrag weiterhin, welche Anreize und Möglichkeiten der Ligaverband als marktinterner Regulierer hat, die Ausnahmen wirksam und zeitnah abzuschaffen. Die ökonomische Untersuchung kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass wirksame Maßnahmen der Selbstregulierung nicht zu erwarten sind. Daher wird ein formales Eingreifen des Bundeskartellamts befürwortet. |
| Abstract: | There is an ongoing discussion about whether the so-called 50+1 rule, with which the German Football League (DFL) aims to achieve the goals of club autonomy and codetermination in professional football, complies with competition rules or constitutes a violation of competition law. Accordingly, the Federal Cartel Office is also investigating this matter. This article focuses on the exceptions to the rule and, from a (sports and competition) economic perspective, argues that even if the 50+1 rule were acceptable, the relevant exceptions would unduly distort competition. Given the Federal Cartel Office's reluctance to intervene with a formal decision, this article further examines what incentives and options the league association, as an internal market regulator, has to effectively and promptly abolish the exceptions. The economic analysis concludes that effective self-regulatory measures are not to be expected. Therefore, formal intervention by the Federal Cartel Office is advocated. |
| Keywords: | Fußball, 50plus1-Regel, Antitrust, Wettbewerbsverzerrung, interner Marktregulierer, Sportökonomik, 0plus1-rule in European football, antitrust, restrictions of competition, marketinternal regulator, sports economics |
| JEL: | K21 L40 L83 Z20 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343550 |
| By: | Florian Ederer; Regina Seibel; Timothy Simcoe |
| Abstract: | This paper examines innovation outcomes before and after 1, 200 startup acquisitions by eight major technology firms. Linking patent and workforce data to these deals, we document four main findings. First, most acquired startups hold no patents, but those with patents tend to operate in technology areas where the acquirer already has a presence and that see further acquisition activity. Second, innovation typically rises before an acquisition, continues afterward only where further acquisitions follow, and falls back once acquisition activity ends. We propose a stylized model in which beliefs about commercial viability drive both startup entry and acquisitions to explain how these patterns arise through selection rather than effects of the deals. Third, acquired patents receive significantly more citations after the acquisition than comparable patents, not only from the acquirer but also from firms that hire the targets’ employees. Fourth, although 31% of employees and 23% of inventors depart within a year, inventors who stay go on to patent substantially more, while stayers and leavers were equally productive beforehand. In the aggregate, we find little evidence that acquisitions by digital incumbents suppress innovation, even though serial acquisitions go hand in hand with growing patent consolidation. |
| JEL: | L41 L63 L86 O31 O34 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35762 |
| By: | Snell, Andy (University of Edinburgh); Almeida, Enzo (University of Torino and Collegio Carlo Alberto); Martins, Pedro (Nova School of Business and Economics); Thomas, Jonathan (University of Edinburgh) |
| Abstract: | How are incumbent workers impacted by minimum wage increases? Is labour market concentration an important moderating factor? We address these questions by presenting a new model, drawing on comprehensive employer-employee matched panel data from Portugal, and considering individual mandated wage rises from both national and collectively bargained minimum wages. We find that employment protection plays a key role in these effects: workers under permanent contracts are almost completely insulated from the exit hazards associated with wage bites while workers in temporary (fixed-term) contracts are exposed to these hazards. Labour concentration can significantly reduce negative effects on temporary workers, by up to 60\%. A model of monopsonistic competition with firing costs rationalises these patterns. |
| Keywords: | minimum wages, collective bargaining, temporary contracts, labour market power |
| JEL: | J23 J38 J42 J63 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18914 |
| By: | Schmal, Wolfgang Benedikt |
| Abstract: | Im Schienenpersonenfernverkehr entstehen zunehmend neue Angebote auf nachfragestarken Verbindungen. Diese Entwicklung ist wettbewerbspolitisch zu begrüßen. Sie legt aber ein institutionelles Problem offen: Der Zugang zu besonders attraktiven Trassen ist bislang kaum systematisch mit den Netzbeiträgen anderer Fernverkehrsleistungen verknüpft. Der Beitrag entwickelt ein Trassencredit-System als regelgebundenen Allokationsrahmen: Für besonders knappe Premiumtrassen müssen Credits eingesetzt werden; netzergänzende Fernverkehrsleistungen erzeugen Credits. Bewertet werden ausschließlich objektivierbare Verkehrsleistungen, nicht die historischen Kosten eines etablierten Betreibers. Ordnungsökonomisch überführt das Modell eine bislang implizite Netzverantwortung in ein regulatorisch definiertes, handelbares Nutzungsrecht innerhalb einer regelgebundenen Wettbewerbsordnung. Seine Tragfähigkeit hängt davon ab, ob zwei Fehlerquellen institutionell beherrscht werden: die Marktmacht eines dominanten Anbieters im Creditmarkt und die Vereinnahmung der Bewertungsregel. |
| Abstract: | Open-access competition is bringing new long-distance rail services to high-demand routes. This is a welcome development from a competition-policy perspective, but it reveals an institutional problem: access to especially attractive paths is only weakly connected to the network contributions generated by other long-distance rail services. This paper proposes a track-credit scheme as a rule-bound allocation framework. Scarce premium paths require credits, while network-complementary services generate them. Valuation rests on observable transport outputs, not on the historical costs of an incumbent operator. The scheme converts an implicit network contribution into a regulatorily defined, tradable usage right within a rule-bound competitive order, provided two failure modes, incumbent market power and capture of the scoring rule, are contained. |
| Keywords: | Schienenpersonenfernverkehr, Open Access, Trassenvergabe, handelbare Credits, Netzökonomie, Wettbewerbspolitik, long-distance rail, open access, slot allocation, tradable credits, network economics, competition policy |
| JEL: | L92 R48 D47 D23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343554 |
| By: | Budzinski, Oliver |
| Abstract: | A series of high-profile judgments of the European Court of Justice has recently emphasized the anticompetitive character of many regulatory interventions of sports associations (like UEFA) into the sports markets they are governing. This has led to widespread calls for reforms and changes. However, given the special characteristics of sports requiring a market-internal regulator to set, implement, and enforce the common rules of the game, a somewhat neglected question is how regulatory interventions by sports associations can look like in the future in order to avoid violating competition rules. This paper develops a framework for regulatory activities by sports governing bodies (like UEFA) that stands in line even with ambitious interpretations of the judgments. It uses the Royal Antwerpen case about regulations to promote homegrown talent as an example. However, the developed framework may be applied for virtually all regulatory interventions by sports associations. |
| Keywords: | football, sports economics, sport law, governance, competition, Royal Antwerp case, homegrown talent, market-internal regulator |
| JEL: | Z20 K21 L83 J01 J08 J49 Z22 Z23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343553 |
| By: | Margit Molnar; Serdar Sengul; Christian Gréus |
| Abstract: | Bulgaria has successfully liberalised its economy and integrated into global value chains, creating jobs and raising incomes. However, businesses face long-standing challenges of low productivity. Catching up has been steady but a productivity gap with the more advanced economies remains. This paper calculates labour productivity and estimates total factor productivity based on Bulgarian micro data for 2018-23 collected by the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria and Orbis for international comparison. Bulgarian firms in some manufacturing industries such as garments or manufacturing of machinery and equipment are less productive than other countries in the greater region, while they are more productive in some services, such as computer programming. As expected, larger and foreign firms, exporters and those located in the region around Sofia are more productive. The paper estimates markups to assess competitive pressures, and such estimates are very high in a few manufacturing industries, such as pharmaceuticals and transport equipment, and a large number of service industries such as utilities, trade of vehicles, accommodation and commerce, raising concerns about the level of competition in those markets. |
| Keywords: | competition, markups, productivity, TFP |
| JEL: | D24 D43 L11 L25 |
| Date: | 2026–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1876-en |
| By: | Ayca Kaya (University of Vienna); Santanu Roy (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | In a lemons market with repeated trading by sellers with persistent private information, price transparency affects gains from trade and the market's ability to learn the seller's type. With price transparency, a class of complete-learning equilibria approaches the upper bound on gains from trade imposed by private information when the seller is patient. Without price transparency, prior work shows that complete learning is impossible and gains from trade cannot reach this bound. Price transparency changes incentives by inducing sellers to reject profitable but lower-than-expected offers to preserve future rents, allowing high quality to trade slowly without distorting low quality's trade. |
| Keywords: | Repeated sales, adverse selection, lemons market, price transparency. |
| JEL: | D82 C73 D61 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:2601 |
| By: | Bose, Joy |
| Abstract: | Firms adopting AI to substitute for labor face a coordination problem that recurs across two theoretically incompatible traditions: demand-side models, where aggregate demand depends on the same wage income that firms are cutting, and Marxian value-theoretic models, where the rate of profit depends on a capital-composition ratio that competitive automation drives in a self-undermining direction. We define a latent labor-intensity variable and channel-specific mappings into each tradition's own state variable, rather than assuming the two traditions share a state variable, and ask a narrower, computationally checkable question: under what conditions does decentralized, competitive automation converge on a labor intensity below the level that maximizes each channel's own aggregate outcome, a condition we call automation overshoot. Computed independently across a shared parameter space, the two channels show substantial but incomplete agreement (95% and 84% of the swept region show overshoot in the demand and Marxian channels respectively, 83% show it in both), a result that survives a fifteen-specification robustness check across alternative functional forms and internalization strengths (intersection fraction range 0.57-0.94, mean 0.82). Market concentration moves both channels toward less overshoot under fully independent native-parameter sampling that removes any shared coordinate system, a directional claim that survives four targeted falsification tests, one of which an earlier version of this model failed: a mechanical scale artifact in the demand channel, where more competing firms mechanically implied more aggregate automation activity regardless of any internalization behavior, is identified, derived away analytically, and corrected, with every result in this draft reported post-correction. A follow-up generalization addresses a further concern directly: firm count is not the same thing as market concentration. Removing the symmetric-firm assumption and re-deriving the demand channel's internalization term for heterogeneous market shares shows the correction scales as s_i^2 for each firm's own share s_i, so that aggregate internalization is governed by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, HHI = sum over i of s_i^2, with the earlier N-based results recovered as the symmetric-share special case. Holding firm count fixed at N=10 while redistributing shares from equal to one dominant firm moves demand-channel overshoot by a factor of 37; plotting demand-channel overshoot against HHI directly across firm counts from 5 to 50 collapses the resulting curves onto one relationship to within 5%, indicating HHI, not N, explains the concentration dependence in this channel substantially better than firm count alone, within the heterogeneous-share configurations tested and the isolating-benchmark design described in Section 4a. Separately, an analysis of the demand and Marxian channels' concentration relationships under independent sampling shows the two channels do not differ in "magnitude" on a single shared scale so much as in shape: the demand channel exhibits a sharp threshold effect concentrated at low firm counts, while the Marxian channel exhibits a shallow, gradual effect spread across the full sampled range of market structures. We extend the model with a hysteretic labor-effort function motivated by, but formalized independently of, Byung-Chul Han's account of the achievement subject: workers sustain effort under a belief that individual strategy can secure their position, a belief that collapses abruptly once a recognition threshold is crossed and recovers only past a lower threshold than the one that triggered the collapse. Wired into a simulated output trajectory, this produces a counterfactual output shortfall that persists after visible layoffs have already subsided; it is reported as an extension, not as co-equal with the core overshoot and concentration results. |
| Keywords: | automation overshoot, computational economics, artificial intelligence adoption, hysteresis |
| JEL: | C63 D43 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:343301 |
| By: | Bonin, Simone Maria (Danmarks Nationalbank and Aarhus University); Gorshkov, Andrei (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | We study the transmission of firm-specific export shocks through labor markets, examining how these shocks influence workers’ wages at competing firms via labor market competition. Using rich Danish administrative data, a flexible, empirically driven definition of workers’ outside options, and an identification strategy based on world import demand shocks, we show that both own-firm and competitor export shocks raise incumbent workers’ wages. These export-driven shocks also trigger competitive worker reallocation, as expanding exporters poach workers from other firms. The results indicate spillover effects of export shocks extending to non-exporting firms. |
| Keywords: | labour market competition; export shocks; worker outside options |
| JEL: | F16 J23 J31 J63 |
| Date: | 2026–09–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_016 |
| By: | Budzinski, Oliver; Haucap, Justus |
| Abstract: | Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Wirkungen der Finanz- und Budgetregeln im europäischen Fußball in den letzten gut 15 Jahren. Es wird aufgezeigt, dass die negativen Externalitäten, welche eine solche Regulierung (sport-)ökonomisch rechtfertigen, durch die existierenden Finanzregeln auf europäischer und nationaler Ebene offenbar erfolgreich kontrolliert werden. Dazu reichen allerdings wohl bereits die mildesten und am wenigsten restriktiven der verschiedenen Regelsysteme und -elemente aus. Die wettbewerbsbeschränkenden und ökonomisch restriktiven Effekte der weitergehenden Regeln - wie der Break-Even-Regel oder Kaderkostenbegrenzungen - wären somit durch die Marktversagensproblematik nicht gerechtfertigt. Empirische Studien liefern zudem kaum Evidenz, dass sie weiterführenden Zielen (bspw. der Wettbewerbsausgeglichenheit) effektiv dienen würden. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es bedenklich, dass die DFL gerade beschlossen hat, ihre Finanzregeln zukünftig noch stärker restriktiv und spürbar invasiver auszugestalten als bisher. Insbesondere die parallele Gültigkeit einer Kaderkostenbegrenzungsregel und der Investorenbegrenzungsregel ("50plus1-Regel") wird aus sport- und wettbewerbsökonomischer Perspektive kritisch gesehen. |
| Abstract: | This article examines the effects of financial and budgetary regulations in European football over the past 15 years. It demonstrates that the negative externalities that justify such regulation from a (sports) economics perspective are apparently successfully controlled by existing financial rules at the European and national levels. However, even the mildest and least restrictive of the various rule systems and elements seem to suffice for this purpose. The competition-restricting and economically limiting effects of more far-reaching rules - such as the break-even rule or squad cost limits - would therefore not be justified by the problem of market failure. Furthermore, empirical studies provide little evidence that these rules effectively serve broader objectives (e.g., competitive balance). Against this backdrop, it is concerning that the DFL (German Football League) has just decided to make its financial rules even more restrictive and noticeably more invasive than before. In particular, the intended parallel application of a new squad cost limitation rule and the existing investor limitation rule ("50plus1 rule") must be viewed critically from a sports and competition economics perspective. |
| Keywords: | Sportökonomik, Fußball, Regulierungsökonomik, Finanzregeln, Fiskalregeln, Wettbewerb, Kaderkostenregel, 50plus1-Regel, sports economics, football, regulatory economics, financial and fiscal rules, competition, antitrust, squad cost rule, 50plus1 rule |
| JEL: | H39 K21 L40 L83 Z20 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:343551 |
| By: | Pavel Gertler (Národná banka Slovenska); Brian Fabo (Národná banka Slovenska; Slovenská akadémia vied); Peter Tóth (Národná banka Slovenska; Ekonomická univerzita v Bratislave) |
| Abstract: | This presentation studies how consumer prices responded to two permanent VAT reductions in Slovakia, both lowering the rate from 20% to 10%, first for essential staples in 2016 and later for a broader set of goods in 2020. Leveraging detailed scanner data and a synthetic difference-in-differences framework, I find that VAT passthrough is highly heterogeneous depending on product attributes, demand elasticity, and policy design. The 2016 reform, which targeted clearly defined essential goods and was announced well in advance, led to full and persistent price reductions. The 2020 reform, applied to a loosely defined category of healthy goods with limited legislative lead time, produced only partial and short-lived price effects, with passthrough largely reversing within six weeks. These contrasting outcomes identify policy design as a key determinant of passthrough. Well-targeted VAT cuts on essential goods with inelastic demand can deliver meaningful and durable consumer price relief, while broader or less transparent interventions risk increasing retailer margins without lasting benefits for consumers. |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:carp26:12 |
| By: | David Martimort (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, IUF - Institut universitaire de France - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche); Aggey Semenov (uOttawa - Université d'Ottawa = University of Ottawa [Ontario]) |
| Abstract: | We characterize the optimal contract within the class of fixed-terms mechanisms in a repeated buyer-seller relationship with persistent adverse selection and one-sided limited enforcement. The seller reports his type once, and the corresponding transfer and output are then repeated in every period. After receiving the current transfer, the seller may breach, pay an enforceable penalty, and terminate the relationship. In this benchmark, the enforcement problem collapses to a bound on the transfer targeted to the most efficient type. This yields a three-regime characterization. With strong enforcement, the repeated static second-best contract is feasible. With weak (intermediate) enforcement, the top transfer is capped, inducing bunching among efficient types and additional downward distortions. With very weak enforcement, sustaining compliance through public penalties alone would require excessive quantity distortions, and the optimal contract instead leaves strictly positive continuation rents, including for the least efficient type. We interpret the associated distortion as a virtual enforcement cost. |
| Keywords: | Adverse selection, Limited enforcement, Relational contracts, Contract breach |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05742834 |
| By: | Takeshi Nishimura; Nobuyuki Hanaki |
| Abstract: | We provide experimental evidence on entry and bidding behavior in surplusextracting auctions built on the second-price format. In addition to the simple second-price auction, we consider full- and partial-surplus-extracting auctions. The latter leaves more surplus to bidders under full entry than the former, while preserving the same set of undominated strategies: value bidding and opting out. In contrast to the second-price auction, both auctions exhibit lower entry and overbidding among entrants. Our findings highlight the interplay between entry and bidding behavior, shedding light on the trade-off between surplus extraction and strategic simplicity in auction design with voluntary participation. |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1266r |
| By: | Zhentong Lu; Myung Hwan Seo; Youngki Shin; Qichen Zhang |
| Abstract: | We develop a stochastic nested fixed point (SNFP) estimator for random coefficients logit demand models that updates model parameters using stochastic gradients and performs demand inversion one market at a time. Relative to the conventional nested fixed point (NFP) estimator, SNFP substantially reduces memory requirements and computational cost, making estimation feasible in very large datasets. We establish the large-$T$ (number of markets) asymptotic properties of the estimator under regularity conditions. We also characterize the effect of sharing one block of simulation draws across markets and show how to correct for it. Monte Carlo simulations show that the SNFP estimator achieves statistical accuracy comparable to the NFP estimator, and in our benchmark a single online pass estimates a model with 100 million markets in about 5.5 hours. An empirical application using scanner data further demonstrates the practical advantages of SNFP for large-scale demand estimation. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.23998 |