Amsterdam Center for Law & Economics

The ACLE C&R Meetings

The ACLE Competition & Regulation meetings are a series of annual workshops that focus on topics in competition law enforcement and regulation. Around a program of key-note speakers, (young) scholars discuss submitted academic papers in parallel sessions. The leading idea is to inform European competition policy. The aim is to attract roughly 100 specialized participants from academia, government antitrust agencies, law and consulting firms to create the optimal conditions for a high level exchange of views.

2012: Behavioral Competition and Regulation

This year’s eight ACLE Competition & Regulation Meeting focuses on what we can learn from behavioral economics for the enforcement of competition law and regulation. Much of competition policy and regulation is based on insights from economic models with rational decision-makers. Yet a substantial body of research shows that many individuals are better characterized as being boundedly rational. In consumption choices as well as contexts that resemble executive decisions, people display such deviations from rationality as time inconsistency, overweighting of small probabilities, and failure to ignore sunk costs. Where one side of a market is not fully rational, the other side tailors its behavior accordingly.
We will approach the topic of behavioral competition and regulation from different angles, both economic and legal. Seeking to be informed by scholarly learning and lessons drawn from the experiences mentioned the approach in this conference will also be practical. This C&R Meeting brings together renowned specialists.

2011: Competition Policy for Emerging Economies: When and How?

The seventh C&R Meeting, in May 2011, addressed competition enforcement in emerging economies and its interrelationship to economic development. Central was the question whether new enforcement regimes need a special set of enforcement tools and what an appropriate mix of enforcement tools and priorities should be in what stage in the country's economic life-cycle. Contributions were made by: Frédéric Jenny (ESSEC Business School), Daniel Sokol (University of Florida) and Michal Gal (University of Haifa), William Kovacic (FTC), Marc Ivaldi (Toulouse School of Economics) and Hassan Qaqaya (UNCTAD).

2010: Information, Communication and Competition

The sixth ACLE conference addresses the role of sharing information in the competitiveness of markets. The extent to which market information and commercial business information is available to economic actors affects competition. The availability of information about market circumstances can lead to production efficiencies and enhance transparency for example in the regulated markets. Information disclosure is a crucial remedy to overcome information asymmetry for example in markets for non-homogeneous, complex products such as financial services or telecommunications. The availability of information and the exchange of such information can, on the other hand, also facilitate coordination and collusion.

2009: To Enforce and Comply: Incentives inside Corporations and Agencies

The fifth C&R Meeting, in March 2009 was a two-day event on To Enforce and Comply: Incentives inside Corporations and Agencies. Focus was on how private incentive schemes of regulators, enforcers and managers of firms determine the outcome of law enforcement. Speakers included Joseph E. Harrington, William E. Kovacic, Giancarlo Spagnolo, Xavier Vives, Jonathan M. Karpoff, Douglas Cumming, William Blumenthal, Bill Bishop, Andrea Appella, Robert Porter, Barry Rodger, Christof Swaak and Martijn Snoep. The event shed new light on the underlying motivation for law makers to design rules and institutions, for civil servants to enforce the law, and the incentives for company managers and investors to comply with such rules. For more information click on the link below.

2008: EC Competition Enforcement Data

The fourth C&R Meeting, in April 2008, concerned the topic EC Competition Enforcement Data. In this special edition, a small group of specialists in competition law enforcement and econometrics, including Bruce Lyons, Stephen Davies, Tomaso Duso, Jo Seldeslachts, Klaus Gugler and Martin Carree met to discuss quality of data, sample selection bias issues, and possible hypotheses to bring to the data. For more information click on de link below.

2007: Strategic Firm-Authority Interaction in Antitrust, Merger Control and Regulation

The third C&R Meeting, in March 2007, concerned Strategic Firm-Authority Interaction in Antitrust, Merger Control and Regulation. Key-note addresses by R. Preston McAfee and Stephen Calkins introduced discussion on a variety of economic and legal aspects of the game between regulatory agencies and the firms they control in ten parallel sessions. For more information click on de link below.

2006: Forensic Economics in Competition Law Enforcement

The second C&R Meeting, in March 2006 was on Forensic Economics in Competition Law Enforcement. Key-note speakers included Franklin Fisher, Andrew I. Gavil and John Connor. In total eight parallel sessions showed a wide variety of scholarly contributions by scholars from a wide array of backgrounds. A special issue of the Journal of Competition Law and Economics on the topic is forthcoming. For more information click on de link below.

2005: Remedies and Sanctions in Competition Policy

The first C&R Meeting, in February 2005, titled Remedies and Sanctions in Competition Policy: Economic and Legal Implications of the Tendency to Criminalize Antitrust Enforcement in the EU Member States, was on the trend to criminalize antitrust law in Europe. Key-note speakers included Claus-Dieter Ehlermann, William Kovacic, Eleanor Fox, Giancarlo Spagnolo, Wouter Wils and Bruce Lyons. There were in total eight parallel session meetings. A book with the best efforts of this opening event of the ACLE was recently published by Edward Elgar. For more information click on de link below.

Information for members of the press: direct reference to this website is: http://c-rmeetings.acle.nl.