Competition policy reform in Europe and Germany - Institutional change in the light of digitization

Oliver Budzinski and Annika Stöhr

No 117, Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers from Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics

Abstract: The ubiquitous process of digitization changes economic competition on markets in several ways and leads to the emergence of new business models. The increasing roles of digital platforms as well as data-driven markets represent two relevant examples. These developments challenge competition policy, which must consider the special economic characteristics of digital goods and markets. In Germany, national competition law was amended in 2017 in order to accommodate for digitization-driven changes in the economy and plans for further changes are already discussed. We review this institutional change from an economics perspective and argue that most of the reform's elements point into the right direction. However, some upcoming challenges may have been overlooked so far. Furthermore, we discuss whether European competition policy should follow the paragon of the German reform and amend its institutional framework accordingly. We find scope for reform particularly regarding data-driven markets, whereas platform economics appear to be already well-established.

Keywords: competition policy; antitrust; industrial economics; digitization; media economics; institutional economics; industrial organization; big data; algorithms; platform economics; two-sided markets; personalized data; privacy; internet economics; consumer protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 K21 L10 L15 L40 L81 L82 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-com, nep-eur, nep-ict, nep-law and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Journal Article: Competition policy reform in Europe and Germany – institutional change in the light of digitization (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:117

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