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on Industrial Competition |
| By: | Noriaki Matsushima (Osaka School of International Public Policy, the University of Osaka); Kazuki Nishikawa (Graduate School of Economics, the University of Osaka); Jiaying Qiu (Graduate School of Economics, the University of Osaka) |
| Abstract: | A binding minimum wage can raise the regulated firm's profits when labor-market power interacts with product-market competition. We develop a duopoly model in which firms compete in the same product market but hire workers from distinct, geographically segmented labor markets. Because the minimum wage applies only to one firm's labor market, it does not directly raise its rival's costs. With monopsony power, the minimum wage reduces the regulated firm's marginal cost and induces it to expand output, forcing its rival to contract through strategic interaction. Under Cournot competition, this mechanism also increases total employment and consumer surplus. |
| Keywords: | Minimum wage, Monopsony power, Segmented labor markets, Product-market competition |
| JEL: | J38 J42 L13 J23 C72 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osp:wpaper:26e003 |
| By: | Hattori, Keisuke |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that entry can raise each individual firm's profit---not merely industry profits---when Cournot oligopolists finance working capital through a contestable banking sector. Under average-cost pricing of loans, entry dilutes fixed banking costs across greater lending volume, lowering loan rates. Entry raises per-firm profits if and only if equilibrium output lies in an intermediate range where financing relief dominates intensified competition. Bank-side and firm-side frictions play opposing roles: firm-side frictions facilitate profit-increasing entry by amplifying cost relief as firms shrink, while bank-side frictions suppress it by raising funding costs as aggregate lending expands. |
| Keywords: | Profit-increasing entry, Cournot oligopoly, Contestable banking, Financial frictions |
| JEL: | D43 G21 G32 L13 |
| Date: | 2026–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127926 |
| By: | Matteo Bizzarri |
| Abstract: | This paper models firm-to-firm trade in a production network as a set of double auctions. Firms have multilateral market power, namely, can affect prices in both input and output markets. The size and division of surplus are endogenous and depend only on technology, network position, and consumer preferences. The standard simplifying assumption of price-taking on input markets (unilateral market power) has systematic effects: it underestimates the final price and overestimates the surplus going upstream. These phenomena affect the model predictions for the welfare impact of mergers. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.21932 |
| By: | Hattori, Keisuke |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes a vertical market structure in which downstream firms compete imperfectly in quantities while upstream banks endogenously determine loan rates. Banks' pricing depends on the policy rate, lending volume, and banking conduct (profit-maximizing versus contestable). With contestable banking, average-cost loan pricing creates feedback between lending and loan rates, making monetary transmission state-dependent. We show that monetary policy, financial regulation, and competition policy---typically delegated to separate authorities---interact non-additively through this upstream channel. Tighter financial regulation amplifies monetary transmission under contestable banking; competition policy can either strengthen or weaken it depending on banking pass-through. These results imply that policy evaluation requires treating the three instruments as a mix rather than in isolation. Extensions with default risk show that policy tightening and weaker competition can be welfare-improving. |
| Keywords: | Imperfect Competition; Endogenous Finance; Monetary Transmission; Financial Regulation; Competition Policy |
| JEL: | D43 G21 L13 |
| Date: | 2026–01–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127924 |
| By: | Klein, Gordon J.; Klotz, Phil-Adrian; Paha, Johannes |
| Abstract: | This study provides an empirical assessment of whether competition stimulates infrastructure investment within network industries – an issue that remains unresolved through theoretical approaches alone. We examine this question in the context of fiber-optic broadband deployment by internet service providers in Germany, a sector that has drawn regulatory scrutiny amid concerns that incumbent firms engage in strategic duplication of infrastructure to deter market entry. To this end, we construct a novel dataset by applying text mining techniques to systematically extract information on fiber infrastructure duplication from newspaper reports. Employing econometric methods, we estimate the causal impact of competition on investment behavior. Contrary to the expectation that competition may spur infrastructure expansion, our findings indicate that competitive pressure is associated with a deceleration in fiber network rollout. |
| Keywords: | Fiber Rollout, Infrastructure Competition, Telecommunication |
| JEL: | D22 L52 L86 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:atv:wpaper:2601 |
| By: | Ertian Chen; Lichao Chen; Lars Nesheim |
| Abstract: | The European Union Emissions Trading System is set to substantially increase the effective carbon price faced by airlines. To quantify the impact of this carbon regulation on the European airline industry, we estimate a two-stage model of airline competition with endogenous route entry, flight frequencies, and pricing using European data on market shares and prices. Counterfactual simulations reveal that the impacts of carbon pricing are highly asymmetric across carrier types and market segments. Consumer surplus declines by up to 25% overall, with medium-haul markets bearing the brunt at up to 90%, while short-haul markets experience positive net welfare gains (including carbon revenue and the social value of avoided emissions) as airlines reallocate capacity toward shorter routes. We find that airline profits decline by 8–45% across scenarios, while carbon tax revenue of $0.9–3.1 billion and a social value of avoided CO2 emissions of $0.5–1.4 billion partially offset the welfare losses. We also show that a hypothetical Wizz Air–Ryanair merger primarily benefits firm profits through network expansion synergies. |
| Date: | 2026–03–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:azt:cemmap:04/26 |
| By: | Khaw, Rachel (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | This thesis develops a theoretical model of digital platform competition in which moderation choices endogenously generate ideological differentiation. Competing platforms decide which content providers to host, trading off advertising revenues against moderation costs, while consumers sort by ideological proximity and content variety. In equilibrium, breadth competition cancels out, leaving ideological tilt as the key dimension of differentiation. Polarisation emerges as the most robust equilibrium, maximising platform profits but welfare-reducing for moderates, while generalism is socially optimal but privately fragile. By modelling ideology as the outcome of moderation intensity rather than an exogenous stance, the paper clarifies how moderation incentives shape polarisation, welfare, and regulatory trade-offs. |
| Keywords: | Digital platforms ; content moderation ; ideological differentiation ; polarisation ; welfare ; industrial organisation. JEL classifications: L13 ; L82 ; D43 ; D72 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:98 |
| By: | Yassine Lefouili (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, UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse); Leonardo Madio (University of Padova, Padova, Italy.) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we review recent studies on the impact of mergers on investments. We begin by examining how mergers among competing incumbents inf luence firms' incentives to develop new products and undertake cost-reducing or quality-enhancing investment. We then analyze how an incumbent's acquisition of an innovative entrant affects the investment incentives of both parties. Next, we discuss the effects of vertical mergers on the investment decisions of both upstream and downstream firms. Finally, we highlight several policy-relevant insights from the literature and suggest directions for future research. |
| Keywords: | Entry, Mergers, Innovation, Investment, Competition |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05543677 |
| By: | Pablo Blanchard (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Sebastián Fleitas (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile); Rodrigo González Valdenegro (Charles River Associates) |
| Abstract: | We study the equilibrium welfare effects of using state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to discipline market power. We estimate a dynamic equilibrium model of Uruguay’s individual capitalization pension system, where a high-quality SOE competes with private firms in the presence of worker inertia. We find that the presence of a SOE lowers equilibrium fees and increases investment returns. Replacing it with a private firm would more than double its fee and raise private firms’ fees by 8 percent. Reducing inertia mitigates but does not offset privatization. Comparing policy instruments, we show that direct price regulation yields higher welfare gains than competition through an SOE. |
| Keywords: | competition, state-owned firms, pension funds, regulation |
| JEL: | L51 N2 H4 L21 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-03-26 |
| By: | Georgios Gatsios; Christos Genakos; Stella Papadokonstantaki |
| Abstract: | We examine the short-run impact of price ceilings on retail gasoline prices in isolated oligopolistic markets, uniquely observing for which stations the regulation was binding and for which it was not. Leveraging daily pricing data and a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that, while binding stations naturally lowered prices, non-binding stations increased theirs, though there is substantial heterogeneity. Among non-binding stations, those with more favorable characteristics for collusion adjust prices faster, move closer to the ceiling, and exhibit lower price dispersion, consistent with more effective coordination. Our results provide evidence that the price ceiling acted as a focal point for collusion among non-binding stations, consistent with channels identified in tacit collusion theory. |
| Keywords: | price ceiling, tacit collusion, focal point, retail gasoline markets, oligopoly |
| Date: | 2026–04–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2169 |
| By: | Zhonghong Kuang; Sanxi Li; Yi Liu; Yang Yu |
| Abstract: | In light of prevailing data regulations, consumer mobility across diverse markets inherently endogenizes market segmentation. Considering such strategic interactions, we define a market segmentation as strategy-proof when no consumer (with positive measure) has an incentive to deviate to another market. We show that in every strategy-proof market segmentation, the producer surplus remains at the uniform monopoly level, and the consumer surplus is bounded between the buyer-optimal level and the uniform monopoly level. Remarkably, no consumer is worse off than in the case of a uniform monopoly. We also construct a family of strategy-proof segmentations to realize every possible welfare outcome. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.20609 |
| By: | Louis-Daniel Pape (ECO-Télécom Paris - Equipe Eco Economie - CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Michelangelo Rossi (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the European Union (EU) Digital Markets Act (DMA) on user search behavior and traffic to online mapping services, focusing on recent changes to Google's search results page. In January 2024, Google altered the display of location-based queries for EU users by removing clickable maps and direct links to Google Maps. We exploit this policy-induced change and implement a difference-in-differences design comparing EU and non-EU countries to assess how the removal of Google's self-preferencing shaped search volumes and traffic patterns. Search queries for maps and Google Maps increased by more than 21%. Although the former may reflect broader interest in mapping services, the latter directly signals intent to use Google Maps. Yet, this surge in searches primarily redirected users back to Google Maps. Traffic data reveal no significant change in overall visits to www.google.com/maps on desktops or mobile devices. Instead, we observe shifts in the channels through which users access the service and in session duration. No corresponding increase in search activity or traffic is observed for Bing Maps nor for other competing mapping services. These findings indicate that the DMA had weak competitive effects, highlighting Google Maps' dominance in a market where alternatives remain limited. |
| Keywords: | Self-preferencing, Digital Platforms, Online Search, Digital Markets Act, Google Maps |
| Date: | 2026–01–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05564479 |
| By: | Markiewicz, Zuzanna (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether the 2013 FAA First Officer Qualifications (1, 500-hour) rule reshaped competitive dynamics across U.S. legacy and regional carriers, measured by group-level mean changes in offered seat capacity relative to Mexican and Canadian carriers outside the rule’s jurisdiction. Triple-Difference and Difference-in-Differences models are estimated on an airport-pair–carrier–month–year-level data on passenger flights on bidirectional U.S.–Canada and U.S.–Mexico routes market from 2012 to 2014. On average, post-policy, the U.S. legacy–regional capacity gap in offered seats widened by 46% relative to the corresponding foreign legacy–regional gap. U.S. regional carriers reduced offered seats by 19% relative to foreign regional carriers, while U.S. legacy carriers increased offered seats by 34% relative to foreign legacy carriers. Overall, the safety-oriented tightening of pilot-qualification requirements appears to have produced unintended competitive spillovers with asymmetric effects, consistent with wage-sensitive U.S. regional airlines curtailing operations and larger-scale U.S. legacy carriers gaining market power. |
| Keywords: | 1, 500-hour rule ; pilot qualification requirements ; labour supply constraints ; airline competition ; regulatory asymmetry JEL classifications: L93 ; L51 ; L13 ; J44 ; R48 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:97 |
| By: | Dubois, Pierre; Pakes, Ariel |
| Abstract: | Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs may expand treatment access but also risks promoting overuse and business stealing without generating welfare gains. Among developed nations, only the United States and New Zealand permit DTCA, whereas detailing - promotion aimed at prescribers - is widely practiced. This paper analyzes the impact of DTCA on profits by modeling a counterfactual environment in which DTCA is banned. This is implemented through a dynamic equilibrium framework that adapts the Experience-Based Equilibrium (Fershtman and Pakes, 2012) for empirical analysis. EBE incorporates constraints on the cognitive abilities of decision-makers and mitigates researchers’ computational concerns. Using data from four therapeutic markets, we first validate the EBE’s ability to replicate observed advertising patterns, then simulate counterfactual DTCA bans. Both the data and our empirical work indicate that DTCA and detailing are strong complements, and our results illuminate the need to account for this when evaluating the ban. The ban leads firms to reduce detailing and has a negative effect on profits in all markets, but the magnitude of the effect varies from under 5% in the market for Ulcer to 27.5% for Asthma medications. |
| Keywords: | Pharmaceutical Advertising, Dynamic Models of Competition |
| JEL: | L20 I10 M37 |
| Date: | 2026–03–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:131652 |
| By: | Aaron L. Bodoh-Creed; Brent R. Hickman; John A. List; Ian Muir; Gregory K. Sun |
| Abstract: | Nonlinear pricing theory predicts that firms can extract surplus by inducing heterogeneous consumers to self-sort across price contract offers that are ex-post optimal for them. We study subscription pricing when the frictionless sorting assumption fails. Using large-scale subscription experiments conducted by Lyft, we document systematic deviations from optimal self-selection: many high-demand consumers decline subscriptions that would have saved them money, while some subscribers fail to break even. We develop a structural model of intensive-margin demand in which consumers may exhibit salience failures, forecast errors about future demand, or impulsivity. We show that subscription uptake can be recast as one-sided noncompliance in a binary-instrument framework, allowing us to leverage LATE methods to identify counterfactual outcome distributions and a novel “uptake function” linking baseline outcomes to compliance behavior. Combining experimental price variation with this identification strategy, we recover utility primitives, demand heterogeneity, and behavioral parameters. Salience failures and forecast errors play quantitatively important roles. Counterfactual analyses show that optimal subscription pricing generates substantial gains relative to linear pricing, but these gains are highly sensitive to consumer deviations from ex-post optimal choice. Implementing nonlinear pricing therefore requires not only optimal contract design for consumer screening, but also coordinated efforts to mitigate behavioral frictions. |
| JEL: | C14 C51 C93 D04 L4 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35003 |
| By: | Mayara Felix |
| Abstract: | I estimate the effect of trade on local labor market concentration and its implications for wages using employer-employee linked data and tariff shocks from Brazil’s trade liberalization. Trade increased concentration by 7%, an effect driven by firm exit and worker flows to surviving import-competing firms. Increased concentration reduced wage take-home shares—estimated at 50 cents on the dollar pre-shock—enough to offset small wage gains from reallocation, but did not meaningfully reduce wages on net. Most of the wage declines attributed to Brazil's trade liberalization resulted instead from reductions in the marginal revenue product of labor. Incorporating informality reveals substantial regional heterogeneity. |
| JEL: | F16 O1 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35018 |
| By: | Nigar Hashimzade; Haoran Sun |
| Abstract: | Industrial policy has returned to the centre of economic governance, particularly in the high-tech sectors where positive network externalities in demand make market dominance self-reinforcing. This paper studies the welfare effects of an industrial policy targeting a sector with network externalities in a two-country model with strategic trade and R&D investment. We show how the welfare consequences of this policy are determined by the interaction between the strength of the externality, the type of R&D, and the degree of product differentiation between the home and the imported goods. When externalities are weak or the goods are close substitutes, the business-stealing effect produces a race to the bottom that dissipates more surplus than it creates. Under sufficiently strong externalities and weak substitutability or complementarity of the goods, industrial policy competition can make both countries simultaneously better off compared to the laissez-faire outcome because of the mutual business-enhancement effect. The case is stronger for the product innovation than for the process innovation, as the former directly affects the demand and triggers a stronger network effects than the latter which operates indirectly through the supply. Thus, the network externalities create an opportunity for a win-win industrial policies, but its realisation depends on the market structure and the nature of innovation. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.29542 |
| By: | Armin Catovic |
| Abstract: | Recent advances in generative AI systems have dramatically reduced the cost of digital production, fueling narratives that widespread participation in software creation will yield a proliferation of viable companies. This paper challenges that assumption. We introduce the Builder Saturation Effect, formalizing a model in which production scales elastically but human attention remains finite. In markets with near-zero marginal costs and free entry, increases in the number of producers dilute average attention and returns per producer, even as total output expands. Extending the framework to incorporate quality heterogeneity and reinforcement dynamics, we show that equilibrium outcomes exhibit declining average payoffs and increasing concentration, consistent with power-law-like distributions. These results suggest that AI-enabled, democratised production is more likely to intensify competition and produce winner-take-most outcomes than to generate broadly distributed entrepreneurial success. Contribution type: This paper is primarily a work of synthesis and applied formalisation. The individual theoretical ingredients - attention scarcity, free-entry dilution, superstar effects, preferential attachment - are well established in their respective literatures. The contribution is to combine them into a unified framework and direct the resulting predictions at a specific contemporary claim about AI-enabled entrepreneurship. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.23685 |
| By: | Lawrence W. Abrams |
| Abstract: | The Federal Trade Commission has recently filed an administrative complaint against the Big 3 pharmacy benefit managers claiming they engaged in unfair conduct in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. They never used the word collusion in the complaint and chose not to sue under The Sherman Act, Section 1. We view this as a novel case of market design collusion rather than a case of price collusion. The Big 3 PBMs are conceptualized as auctioneers soliciting rebate bids off unit list prices in exchange for favored positions on formularies. We will show how the fairness standard of the FTC Act can be made operational by judging fairness against economic theories of good auction design. Discovery is focused on finding explicit communication among the Big 3 PBMs in 2012 to change the so-called winner s determination equation of this auction, adding high gross rebates as a basis for formulary position assignments. On the other hand, we will argue that a case based on a bevy of anecdotes comparing only net unit prices will fail due to complexities in the winners determination equation. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2603.19412 |
| By: | Gregor, Leonard; Haucap, Justus |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 on refinery margins, i.e. the difference between wholesale prices for road fuels (gasoline and diesel) and oil prices in Europe and Germany in particular. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wholesale road fuel prices net of taxes rose by more than 50 cents per liter, whereas crude oil prices increased by only about 30 cents per liter. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we compare refinery margins in Germany with those on the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) spot market, which serves as a European benchmark price. The results indicate that refinery margins in Germany increased by approximately 5-6 cents per liter relative to the ARA region after the invasion. We attribute this differential primarily to Germany's strong dependence on Russian Ural crude oil imports and to the presence of regional market power among German refineries. We further document substantial heterogeneity in treatment effects across both time and regions. In addition, the invasion was associated with a significant decline in fuel demand, with gasoline consumption falling by about 13% and diesel consumption by approximately 9%. |
| Keywords: | Event Study, Ukraine Crisis, Fuel prices, Wholesale markets |
| JEL: | C33 G14 H56 L13 L71 Q41 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:339575 |
| By: | Lundin, Erik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | I estimate the cross-border effects of Swedish nuclear outages using hourly data on day-ahead prices, generation, and consumption across 15 bidding zones in Northern Europe from 2021 to 2024. I exploit unplanned outages as exogenous variation in nuclear supply and find that a 1 GW reduction in Swedish nuclear capacity increases the day-ahead price in the SE-Stockholm bidding zone by approximately 28 percent (17 EUR/MWh). Although less precisely estimated, prices in Finland, Denmark, and the Baltics increase by about 12–13 EUR/MWh. In Norway, contemporaneous price effects are largely offset by increased hydro generation, implying an intertemporal displacement of costs as reservoir levels decline. Since short-run demand is approximately inelastic within the relevant price range, changes in consumer surplus are well approximated by the price change multiplied by the quantity consumed. Abstracting from dynamic effects due to hydro substitution, Swedish consumers bear approximately half of the total short-run loss in consumer surplus, with Finland accounting for the largest share among neighboring countries. |
| Keywords: | Nuclear power; Electricity markets; Cross-border externalities; Generation adequacy; Market integration; EUPHEMIA |
| JEL: | F15 H25 L94 Q48 |
| Date: | 2026–03–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1556 |
| By: | Philippe Corruble (Métis Lab EM Normandie - EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie = EM Normandie Business School) |
| Abstract: | The acquisition of young technology start-ups by dominant companies calls for a change in the rules applicable to the control of company mergers and acquisitions in force in the European Union. The thresholds triggering the competence of the authorities, expressed in terms of the turnover of the Parties to the operation, are inoperative when the target is a technology company valued before it has any customers. The European Commission, aware of the risk of unchecked capture of associated technological innovations, had believed it could exercise its jurisdiction on the basis of a questionable interpretation of existing provisions. In a ruling of September 3, 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) put an end to this practice. It ruled that only transactions crossing the national threshold can be examined by the Commission, upon referral from the State concerned. In doing so, the CJEU did not resolve the underlying issue: emerging technology companies could be acquired by powerful companies eager to strengthen their dominance, without any control. Analyzing the precise meaning of the CJEU ruling, the avenues it opens up and the initiatives already taken by certain States, the article recommends the adoption of criteria adapted to the context of acquisitions of technology companies, with a focus on intervention at the European level rather than at the level of the Member States. |
| Abstract: | Le contrôle de l'acquisition des entreprises technologiques naissantes : un enjeu majeur, un cadre réglementaire à redéfinir Résumé : l'acquisition de jeunes pousses technologiques par des entreprises dominantes appelle un changement des règles applicables au contrôle des fusions-acquisitions d'entreprises en vigueur dans l'Union européenne. Les seuils déclenchant la compétence des autorités, exprimés en chiffre d'affaires des Parties à l'opération, sont inopérants quand la cible est une entreprise technologique valorisée avant d'avoir des clients. La Commission européenne, consciente du risque de capture sans contrôle des innovations technologiques associées, avait cru pouvoir exercer sa compétence sur la base d'une interprétation contestable des dispositions existantes. Dans un arrêt du 3 septembre 2024, la Cour de justice de l'Union européenne (CJUE) a mis un terme à cette pratique. Elle a jugé que seules les opérations franchissant le seuil national peuvent être examinées par la Commission, sur renvoi de l'Etat concerné. Ce faisant, la CJUE n'a pas résolu la question de fond : des entreprises technologiques naissantes pourront être acquises par de puissantes entreprises, avides de renforcer leur domination, sans le moindre contrôle. Analysant la signification précise de l'arrêt rendu par la CJUE, les pistes qu'elle ouvre et les initiatives déjà prises par certains Etats, l'article recommande l'adoption de critères adaptés au contexte des acquisitions d'entreprises technologiques, en privilégiant l'intervention d'un contrôle au niveau européen et non au niveau des Etats membres. |
| Keywords: | Technology companies, Regulation, Control, Mergers and acquisitions, European Union, Entreprises technologiques, Contrôle, Fusions-acquisitions, Union européenne, Règlement |
| Date: | 2025–07–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05543616 |
| By: | Florian Spitzer; Steffen Huck; Jean-Robert Tyran |
| Abstract: | In markets for experience goods where sellers cannot build reputations, buyers may refrain from purchasing, leading to low efficiency. A product testing institution can mitigate this problem by offering buyers a noisy but informative signal about product quality for a fee before they decide whether to buy. Theory predicts that such testing improves efficiency only when the signal is inexpensive; if the cost is high, it should have no effect. Our experimental results confirm that low-cost signals increase efficiency, although the gains are smaller than expected. Surprisingly, high-cost signals also improve efficiency compared to a control treatment without signals. These findings suggest that institutions predicted to be ineffective by standard theory may nevertheless perform better in practice. |
| Keywords: | experience good, product testing, product quality, signal; experiment |
| JEL: | C73 C91 L15 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12568 |
| By: | Richard Archer; Soheil Ghili; Nima Haghpanah |
| Abstract: | As AI systems shift from directing users to content toward consuming it directly, publishers need a new revenue model: charging AI crawlers for content access. This model, called pay-per-crawl, must solve a problem of mechanism selection at scale: content is too heterogeneous for a fixed pricing framework. Different sub-types warrant not only different price levels but different pricing rules based on different unstructured features, and there are too many to enumerate or design by hand. We propose the LM Tree, an adaptive pricing agent that grows a segmentation tree over the content library, using LLMs to discover what distinguishes high-value from low-value items and apply those attributes at scale, from binary purchase feedback alone. We evaluate the LM Tree on real content from a major German technology publisher, using 8, 939 articles and 80, 451 buyer queries with willingness-to-pay calibrated from actual AI crawler traffic. The LM Tree achieves a 65% revenue gain over a single static price and a 47% gain over two-category pricing, outperforming even the publisher's own 8-segment editorial taxonomy by 40% -- recovering content distinctions the publisher's own categories miss. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.01416 |