Topic Markets

EU Merger Control Database: 1990-2014

BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2017

The tremendous growth of digital transactions – mainly through online platforms – has profoundly affected the way we interact and has opened vast opportunities to improve our lives. The disruptive impact of this process is driven by one core feature: its ability to reduce inefficiencies. Consumers have benefited from an unprecedented proliferation of new services and products that...

Consumer Stockpiling and Sales Promotions

In retailing markets of storable goods, consumer behavior is typically characterized by stockpiling. While existing research has developed rich models for such strategic consumer behavior, little is known about how sellers should ideally respond to it. In this paper, we provide insights into how frequency and depth of promotions affect consumer purchases and seller revenues in the long run. We show ...

Inference of Consumer Consideration Sets

When consumers face a large number of alternatives, they tend to simplify the decision problem by reducing the number of available alternatives to a subset of relevant alternatives, i.e. a consideration set. Since consideration sets are typically unobserved, most studies in the demand literature have to assume a consideration model. If these consideration models are misspecified, the demand estimates ...

Abuse of Dominance and Antitrust Enforcement in the German Electricity Market

In 2008, the European Commission investigated E.ON, a large and vertically integrated electricity company, for the alleged abuse of a joint dominant position by strategically withholding generation capacity. The case was settled after E.ON agreed to divest 5,000 MW generation capacity as well as its extra-high voltage network. We analyze the effect of these divestitures on German wholesale electricity ...

The Impact of Competition Policy Enforcement on the Functioning of EU Energy Markets

We investigate the impact of competition policy enforcement on the functioning of European energy markets, and how sectoral regulation influences these outcomes. For this purpose, we compile a new dataset on the European Commission’s (EC) and EU member states’ competition policy decisions, and combine it with firm- and sector-level data. We find that EC merger policy has a positive and robust impact ...

Hospital-level policy can affect physician behavior and reduce C-section rates

The past few decades have seen a considerable increase in caesarean section rates, which have now reached unprecedented levels. Concerns have been raised about the possibility of medically unnecessary procedures having negative consequences for mothers and infants (WHO, 2015). The aim of this report is to show that a properly implemented hospital-level policy may be a powerful tool for reducing the ...

The 7th Berlin IO Day

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and supported by the Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an...

Structural Data on Production and Employment in the Construction Industry - Calculations for the Years 2016 - 2019

BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2016: Welcome address

Big data is transforming the world we live in. The instant availability of information impacts how individuals consume, how businesses thrive or fail, how society makes scientific discoveries, as well as how governments design and implement informed policies. At a pace and scale unanticipated 20 years ago, information technology is enabling consumers globally. Uncountable services make use of a...