Aspects économiques du droit de la concurrence appliqué aux activités bancaires

Jean-Christian Lambelet () and Alexander Mihailov ()

Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) from Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP

Abstract: This paper starts by reviewing the recent literature on antitrust laws in banking from the perspective of general economic analysis. We focus on the US experience for didactic reasons and as a background against which the Swiss case is discussed further on. After an introductory section, we examine some facts about the process of bank expansion, concentration and mergers in the US during the 1980s and 1990s, and then turn to the driving forces as well as the economic concepts used in assessing possible anticompetitive effects. A third section focuses on the origins and development of the legal framework of banking and competition policy. A brief fourth section summarizes the conclusions and lessons to be derived from the American experience. Finally, in a fifth section, we offer some reflections on the case of Switzerland, which appears to be the mirror image of the US as far as the legal, institutional and empirical aspects of the current situation are concerned. The paper concludes by expressing our confidence that future Swiss competition policy and antitrust legislation in banking will largely benefit from the economic knowledge accumulated on the subject, such as that pertaining to the US case.

Keywords: bank mergers and acquisitions; banking regulation; competition policy; antitrust laws (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G28 K21 L13 L43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998-10

Published in Analyses et prévisions, Institut Créa, Université de Lausanne, automne 1998
Published in La nuova legge suis cartelli, publication de la Commissione ticinese per la formazione dei giuristi, vol. 22, Lugano, 1999, pp. 195-232

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