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A research project to explore the competition and consumer protection policy

“Competition, Innovation and Consumer Protection Policy: Theory, Identification and Empirical Analysis” is the title of a research project that will examine how companies operate in the markets, and various issues related to the factors determining competition policy.

03.03.2017

 

Competition, Innovation and Consumer Protection Policy: Theory, Identification and Empirical Analysis” is the title of a research project that will examine how companies operate in the markets, and various issues related to the factors determining competition policy.

Albert Banal-Estanol, lecturer of the Department of Economics and Business at UPF, is the principal investigator of the project, which will last three years and will be funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in the framework of the 2016 announcement of the Spanish National Programme for Fostering Excellence in Scientific and Technical Research (Excelencia).

“This project seeks to expand on the theory and empirical research in the area of ​​industrial organization, in order to solve unanswered questions. We aim to build and to estimate robust theoretical and empirical models in this area”, says Albert Banal-Estanol.

Professor Banal-Estanol, affiliate professor of the Barcelona GSE and director of the UPF-BSM master’s degree in Corporate Finance and Banking stresses that the results obtained in this project should direct competition policy and the various institutions (legislators, competition agencies, law courts) to formulate and enforce laws in this field.

Other researchers linked to the Department of Economics and Business at UPF who are involved are Rosa Ferrer, Helena Perrone, Carlos Serrano, Christian Michel, and Stephen Hansen (the latter is currently at the University of Oxford).

Practices of exclusion, business organization and financing and consumer protection

One of the aspects of the study to receive most attention is exclusion practices in the markets, one of the most controversial areas of competition policy, through new theoretical models, and which will pay particular attention to anti-competition practices in the markets of the electricity and gas industries.

Moreover, the study will develop new empirical frameworks that will enable analysing the relationship between organizational structures within companies and competition in industry through the use of industrial organization and data science methods.

The ability of companies to introduce new processes, products and services, the role played by financial intermediaries in financing innovation, especially with regard to R&D projects, or the link between finance and industrial organization, are other featured topics of research.

With regard to consumer protection policies, how they affect the behaviour of consumers and companies will be analysed, and proof will be presented that in some markets, competition policies may not be sufficient to ensure that the latter offer benefits to consumers.

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