Market Investigations: A New Competition Tool for Europe?

Massimo Motta · Martin Peitz · Heike Schweitzer

Jan 2022 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

In many economic sectors – the digital industries being first and foremost – the market power of dominant firms has been steadily increasing and is rarely challenged by competitors. Existing competition laws and regulations have been unable to make markets more contestable. The book argues that a new competition tool is needed: market investigations. This tool allows authorities to intervene in markets which do not function as they should, due to market features such as network effects, scale economies, switching costs, and behavioural biases. The book explains the role of market investigations, assesses their use in the few jurisdictions where they exist, and discusses how they should be designed. In so doing, it provides an invaluable and timely instrument to both practitioners and academics.

About the author

Massimo Motta is the author of Competition Policy: Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and the co-author of Exclusionary Practices. The Economics of Monopolisation and Abuse of Dominance (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He was the Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission from 2013 to 2016.

Martin Peitz is the co-author of Industrial Organization: Markets and Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 2015) and The Economics of Platforms: Concepts and Strategy (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He is Co-Director of the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI).

Heike Schweitzer was one of three special advisors to Commissioner Vestager on future challenges of digitisation for competition policy and co-authored the report on Competition policy for the digital era. She co-chaired the German governmental Commission Competition Law 4.0 and advised the German Economic Ministry on the reform of the regime of abuse control in the context of the 10th amendment to the German Competition Law.