The thesis presents a comprehensive and cross-sectional discussion of buyer power to determine the legal regulation of buyer conducts under EU competition law. It focuses on four main research areas: understanding buyer power; analysing the legal treatment given to the exertion of anticompetitive buyer power under EU competition law; exploring theories of harm applicable to buyer power abuse, and ascertaining the welfare standard employed for buyer power cases.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the economic and competition policy issues that buyer power creates. Drawing on economic analysis and cases from around the world, it explains why conventional seller side standards and analyses do not provide an adequate framework for responding to the problems that buyer power can create. Based on evidence that abuse of buyer power is a serious problem for the competitive process, the book evaluates the potential for competition law to deal directly with the problems of abuse either through conventional competition law or special rules aimed at abusive conduct. The author also examines controls over buying groups and mergers as potentially more useful responses to risks created by undue buyer power.
We consider a model of vertical competition where downstream firms (retailers) purchase an upstream input from a monopolist and are able to differentiate from each other in terms of quality. Our primary focus is to study the effects of introducing a large retailer, such as a Wal-Mart Supercenter, that is able to lower wholesale prices (i.e. buyer market power). We obtain two main results. First, the store with no buyer market power responds to the presence of the large retailer by increasing its quality, a finding that is consistent with recent efforts by traditional retailers to enhance shoppers' buying experience (i.e. quality). Second, the presence of a large retailer causes consumer welfare to increase. There are, however, two reasons for the increase in consumer welfare: consumers gain from the large retailer's low price (because the upstream discount is partially passed on to the retail price) as well as from the high quality level offered by the traditional retailer. Contrary to the conventional wisdom most of the consumer welfare gains seem due to the latter. The intuition for this result is that price competition softens substantially as a result of firms' quality differentiation. We also investigate the effects of buyer market power on retail and wholesale prices as well as on producer welfare.
In Defense of Monopoly offers an unconventional but empirically grounded argument in favor of market monopolies. Authors McKenzie and Lee claim that conventional, static models exaggerate the harm done by real-world monopolies, and they show why some degree of monopoly presence is necessary to maximize the improvement of human welfare over time. Inspired by Joseph Schumpeter's suggestion that market imperfections can drive an economy's long-term progress, In Defense of Monopoly defies conventional assumptions to show readers why an economic system's failure to efficiently allocate its resources is actually a necessary precondition for maximizing the system's long-term performance: the perfectly fluid, competitive economy idealized by most economists is decidedly inferior to one characterized by market entry and exit restrictions or costs. An economy is not a board game in which players compete for a limited number of properties, nor is it much like the kind of blackboard games that economists use to develop their monopoly models. As McKenzie and Lee demonstrate, the creation of goods and services in the real world requires not only competition but the prospect of gains beyond a normal competitive rate of return.
In an era of corporate overreach when consumers have never been more vulnerable to digital surveillance, unsafe food, and dangerously faulty products, the president and CEO of Consumer Reports gives us a playbook to put the power back in our hands. You've been getting ripped off. The rules that have protected consumers for decades are failing. Companies are spying on us. Many of the products we once trusted are dangerous and failing at alarming rates. Whether we are buying a crib, a small appliance, an iPhone app, or shopping for car insurance, it's become harder than ever to know whether the choices we make in the marketplace are putting us at risk-either from physical harm or the abuse of our personal data by hackers or corporations. This is intolerable. It's wrong. And we don't have to put up with it anymore. Marta L. Tellado, the president and CEO of Consumer Reports, has been an advocate for consumers for decades. In Buyer Aware, Tellado shows you the steps you can take to protect yourself from predatory business practices, and how to exert your inherent power as a consumer to spur politicians and businesses to clean up their act. Only then can we ensure that we have an economy that is fair, safe, and transparent for all, and puts consumers first.
Market definition and market power assessment are two fundamental steps carried out by competition authorities - and later on reviewed by courts - whenever dealing with alleged breaches of competition law by undertakings. They are, however, mostly centered in selling side cases. This paper puts forward that a mere reverse of the standard methodologies employed for selling side cases are insufficient for the application in buyer side cases. Thus, it is necessary re-assessing the current techniques and their application to be applied to buyer power cases. I submit that in all buyer power cases the market definition ought to be made in both the upstream market and downstream market by adopting a dualistic market definition in buyer power cases. Particular attention ought to be paid to the circumstance of whether the undertaking has market power in the downstream market as this will directly affect whether the conduct is anticompetitive or not. Lastly, this dualistic definition is justified as it fully captures the competitive effects of monopsony or bargaining power and allows for a proper appreciation of buyer power's welfare effects from a consumer's perspective.
The conventional antitrust wisdom is that buyer side market power or monopsony is so unusual and so rarely anticompetitive that it should not merit more than a scholarly afterthought. Moreover, these brief mentions typically say it is essentially the mirror image of seller power or that, while seller-side power is suspect since it leads to higher consumer prices, buyer-side power is usually benign, because the public should not care which layer of a distribution channel gets any potential savings that can arise. This short article discusses how buyer power can be anticompetitive. It also discusses how buyer power or monopsony power is not the reciprocal of seller power or monopoly power, and summarizes an American Antitrust Institute conference on the subject.
A timely update to the book on using the Market Profile method to trade Emerging over twenty years ago, Market Profile analysis continues to realize a strong following among active traders. The approach explains the underlying dynamics and structure of markets, identifies value areas, price rejection points, and measures the strength of buyers and sellers. Unlike more conventional forms of technical analysis, Market Profile is an all-encompassing approach, and Mind Over Markets, Updated Edition provides traders with a solid understanding of it. Since the first edition of Mind Over Markets—considered the best book on applying Market Profile analysis to trading—was published over a decade ago, much has changed in the worlds of finance and investing. That's why James Dalton, a pioneer in the popularization of Market Profile, has returned with a new edition of this essential guide. Written to reflect today's dynamic market conditions, Mind Over Markets, Updated Edition clearly puts this unique method of interpreting market behavior and identifying trading/investment opportunities in perspective. Includes new chapters on Market Profile-based trading strategies, using Market Profile in connection with other market indicators, and much more Explains how the Market Profile approach has evolved over the past twenty-five years and how it is used by contemporary traders Written by a leading educator and authority on the Market Profile One of the key elements that has long separated successful traders from the rest is their intuitive understanding that time regulates all financial opportunities. The ability to record price information according to time has unleashed huge amounts of useful market information. Mind Over Markets, Updated Edition will show you how to profitably put this information to work for you.
