On the asynchronous approvals of GM crops: Potential market impacts of a trade disruption of EU soy imports

Due to their high protein content, soybeans are important feedstuffs in the European Union (EU). However, the cultivation of soybeans using genetically modified (GM) varieties in non-EU countries is increasing and the EU authorization of GM products takes longer than in other countries, leading to an asynchronous approval between the EU and non-EU countries that might induce soybean trade disruptions. This paper uses an integrated modelling system to simulate Argentina, Brazil and the United States ending soybean exports to the EU. The impact on world trade and on the EU import prices of soy products is analysed with a computable general equilibrium model. EU soy imports are shown to decline, and the import price of soybeans in the EU increases. The effects on EU agricultural markets are analysed based on a partial equilibrium model. Feed costs in the EU are found to increase with poultry and pork the most affected: production and exports decline and imports increase. However, the effects of a trade ban are found to be less profound than in many other studies due to compensating substitution effects at various market levels: increasing imports from third countries, increasing domestic oilseed production and the use of other protein feeds.     

European Economic Community industrial research priorities for the early 1980s

Respondents claimed that European effort on basic research rnay have so diminished that the long-term competitiveness of its industries is endangered. They saw a major role for the Commission in redressing this imbalance. There was little support for Commission sponsorship of applied industrial research. Some respondents felt that this could even be counter-productive by diluting effort in areas seen as important by industrial management. A role was seen for the commission in supporting more research on the legislative context and general environment in which industry operates ('contextual research'). The need for such research imposes a growing burden on industry and diverts scarce resources from work directly related to competitiveness.
A study sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities aimed to identify the types of R & D activity in aid of European industry that the Commission might support over the next three or four years. The findings are based on interviews with senior managers from some fifty firms, representing eight sectors of manufacturing industry in five European countries.     

Follow the money: Online piracy and self-regulation in the advertising industry

We study the effects of a self-regulation effort, orchestrated by the European Commission in 2016 and finalized in 2018, that aims to reduce advertising revenues for publishers of copyright infringing content. Data on the third-party HTTP requests made by a large number of piracy websites lets us observe the relations of the piracy and advertising industry over time. We compare these dynamics to a control group of non-advertising services which are not subject to the self-regulation. Our results suggest that the effort is limited in its effectiveness. On average, the number of piracy websites that make requests to EU-based advertising services does not change significantly. Only when we allow for heterogeneity in the popularity of third-party services, we find that the number of piracy websites that interact with the most popular EU-based advertising services decreases by 42%. We do not find evidence that non-EU-based advertising services react to the self-regulation. This implies that only a small share of the firms in the market comply with self-regulation in a way that is visible in our data. We also do not find evidence that the demand for piracy websites decreases due to this “follow the money” initiative.     

Kurzevaluation des Energie- und Klimapakets der EU-Kommission vom 23. Januar 2008

The main features of the European Commission’s “Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package” from January 23rd, 2008, have been implemented in the GINFORS model. In 2007 various alternative paths for achieving the EU’s climate targets were analysed on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Technology (BMWi) using GINFORS. The results basically point in the same direction as those found by the model-based Impact Assessment put out by the European Commission. The macro-economic costs of the package are below 1 % of the EU’s annual GDP. In particular the new member states will be affected above average, which justifies redistribution mechanisms. The yearly growth rates though will remain almost unchanged until 2020. The disproportionately high reduction targets for the ETS sector cannot be reproduced by GINFORS. They cause higher macro-economic costs than necessary. Altogether this does not yet result in a coherent traceable overall picture of the EU package, especially in comparison to analyses of the German energy and climate change policy.     

Lopsided effects of telecom reforms on mobile markets in the enlarged EU: Evidence from dynamic quantile model

The European Union (EU) has recently been significantly enlarged with addition of ten countries, almost all from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This was expected to enhance the performance of the mobile telecommunications industry in the accession countries and in turn to consolidate the highly fragmented European mobile telecoms market to finally reach the single market goal. However, the significant differences between mobile telecommunication performances from one country to another in the enlarged European area raise the issue of how optimal and durable the EU-level reforms have been. We use dynamic quantile regression methods to estimate the effects of mobile telecommunication reforms on the providers' performance in the EU enlargement context. This approach allows uncovering potential asymmetric effects of telecom reforms policy by letting the parameters of regressions vary across the conditional distribution of the sector's performance indicators. Using annual data from on 32 European countries from 1993 to 2011, we document asymmetrical responses to the reforms depending on the conditioning quantile at which they are calculated. Our results show that the effects of the generic and imposed European reforms are notably beneficial and larger for players in developed European countries characterized initially by real and higher degree of the reforms implementation. Accordingly, the success and durability of European reforms, especially in the new CEE member states, which often fail to comply with the pace of the reforms' adoption of industrialized European countries, is not guaranteed when countries specifications are not sufficiently taken into account. A final appealing result regarding the regress of the reform-performance relationship in the mobile markets after enlargement even for western countries attract attention on revising the Europe's current approach to telecoms regulation.     

An econometric analysis of the European Commission's merger decisions

Using a sample of 96 mergers notified to the European Commission and logit regression techniques, we analyse the Commission's decision process. We find that the probability of a phase-2 investigation and of a prohibition of the merger increases with the parties' market shares. The probabilities increase also when the Commission finds high entry barriers or that the post-merger market structure is conducive to collusion. We do not find significant effects of “political” variables, such as the nationality of the merging firms.     

Competitive drivers and international plant configuration strategies: a product‐level test

We analyze the determinants of the decision to invest abroad and the choice of spatial configurations of overseas plants for 120 Japanese firms active in 36 well‐defined electronic product markets. We find that key competitive drivers at the firm and industry levels have a critical impact on the choice between alternative international plant configurations. Regional configurations focused on Asia are chosen by firms with weaker competitiveness for products with established manufacturing technologies. Plant configurations focused on the United States and the European Union are chosen by technology‐intensive firms facing competitive threats in foreign markets. Global configurations are chosen by firms with a strong competitive position in the Japanese and world market for their core product businesses and are more common in the case of strong oligopolistic rivalry between Japanese firms. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interorganizational Collaboration and Innovation: Toward a Portfolio Approach*

In the literature on innovation, interorganizational collaboration has been advanced as beneficial for the innovative performance of firms. At the same time, large‐scale empirical evidence for such a relationship is scarce. This article examines whether evidence can be found for the idea that interorganizational collaboration supports the effectiveness of innovation strategies. This article empirically addresses this research question by analyzing data on Belgian manufacturing firms (n=221) collected in the Community Innovation Survey, a biannual survey organized by Eurostat and the European Commission aimed at obtaining insights into the innovation practices and performance of companies within the various European Union (EU) member states. Tobit analyses reveal a positive relationship between interorganizational collaboration and innovative performance. At the same time, the impact on innovative performance differs depending on the nature of the partner(s) involved. These findings strongly suggest the relevance of adopting a portfolio approach to interorganizational collaboration within the context of innovation strategies.     

How would Swiss consumers decide if they had freedom of choice? Evidence from a field study with organic,conventional and GM corn bread

In 2005, the Swiss expressed their negative attitude towards genetic engineering in agriculture by voting in favor of a ban to use genetically modified (GM) crops in domestic agriculture. At the same time, certain GM food products remain approved but are not on offer since retailers assume that consumers would shun labeled GM food. In our study we tested this claim by conducting a large-scale field study with Swiss consumers. In our experimental design, three clearly labeled types of corn bread were offered at five different market stands across the French and German-speaking part of Switzerland: one made with organic, one made with conventional, and one made with genetically modified (GM) corn. In addition, we tested the consistency between purchasing decision at the market stand and the previous voting decision on GMOs in 2005 by means of an ex-post questionnaire. The results of our discrete choice analysis show that Swiss consumers treat GM foods just like any other type of novel food. We conclude from our findings that consumers tend to appreciate transparency and freedom of choice even if one of the offered product types is labeled as containing a genetically modified ingredient. Retailers should allow consumers to make their own choice and accept the fact that not all people appear to be afraid of GM food.     

The European Commission's approach to mergers involving software-based platforms: Towards a better understanding of platform power

The European Commission’s digital single market policies are increasingly concerned with the impact of so-called ‘platforms’ on competition in the internal market. Whereas the European Commission acknowledges the contributions of platform companies to innovation, it also sees actual and potential damages occurring from their powerful position. As such, the European Commission aims to strengthen the enforcement of its competition law rules in this area. The main research question is how the European Commission has been evaluating the competitive effects of platforms under merger control and whether its approach is adequate to address the manifold concerns related to platforms and competition. Based on a case study analysis, we conclude that the European Commission (1) recognises the platform circumstance, their essential intermediary role in the digital industry and the importance of maintaining fair competition; (2) its analysis has been slowly evolving becoming more granular; (3) platforms’ behaviour and not their size per se is most often the central concern; (4) the proposed Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act packages tackle platform concerns identified in the European Commission’s ex-ante analysis, signalling that its analysis seems to have inspired their creation.     

Interfirm cooperation and structural change in the European automobile industry

The past quarter-century has seen the rapid growth of interfirm cooperative arrangements, on a global scale. In the automobile industry, the forms of cooperation have ranged from mergers and acquisitions, with each partner firm retaining its corporate identity and brand name, to very informal strategic partnerships. Because of its past fragmentation, the consolidation of the European industry into “producer groups” has been a main feature of structural change. Arguably, this development and the formation of rent-seeking coalitions within the European Union were of greater significance than companies' purely technology-oriented cooperative ventures. As a result of the industry members' individual and collective rent-seeking, at the national and EU levels respectively, large price disparities among national markets have persisted. Regulatory barriers as well as the noncompetitive behavior of firms continue greatly to influence the automotive sector, despite the Union's ambitious vision of “Europe 92” as the final stage in the development of an open market for products and factors. Whatever benefits automobile producers may have derived from integration, it has done little so far to enhance consumer welfare.     

National food safety control systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Uganda’s aquaculture control system meet international requirements

Stringent food safety requirements set by developed country markets, which require exporting countries to establish effective national food control systems (NFCS) that guarantee safety of the products to the market, pose a challenge to Sub-Saharan countries in development of aquaculture products as alternative exports following the decline of capture fisheries. In the study, four components of Uganda’s NFCS including legislation, competent authority, inspection services, and laboratory services were evaluated for compliance with FAO/WHO, European Union (EU), and the United States (US) market recommendations for guaranteeing aquaculture product safety. Using a checklist, component elements were benchmarked and scored, and components ranked for compliance with the recommendations. On a scale of 0–5, where 0 denotes none, 1 very low, 2 low, 3 some, 4 almost total, and 5 full compliance, only laboratory services had a barely acceptable score of 3.3 (some compliance). The rest including legislation which is central in setting the level of controls by the other three components scored below three, and the combined score for all components was only 2.2, indicating that Uganda’s NFCS was still short of the requirements to allow entrepreneurs to access markets in the EU and other developed countries. The low score is partly attributed to the dynamics of this country’s fledgling aquaculture industry and the rapidly evolving food safety requirements in the international markets.     

A pan-European telecommunications regulator?

Creating a single telecommunications market in the European Union is well under way, particularly with the approach of full competition after 1 January 1998. However, the regulatory framework needs to reflect the demands of the single market and the needs of industry. The European Commission has been reviewing whether a single pan-European telecommunications regulator would offer a valuable focus in streamlining the existing regulatory structure. In so doing, they commissioned Denton Hall and NERA to evaluate the needs of industry and the legal and practical approaches to the creation of a single regulator.     

HOW MUCH DOES INDUSTRY MATTER? AN ALTERNATIVE EMPIRICAL TEST

Empirical studies using Federal Trade Commission Line of Business data have reported that industry membership explains between 17 percent and 20 percent of financial performance variance among firms. This study attempts to replicate these findings using an alternative sample and a methodology based on executives' perceptions. The results support those reported in previous studies, with industry factors explaining about 20 percent of overall performance variance. Moreover, the analysis produces empirically derived industry factors, and examines their relative power in explaining industry performance variance.     

Switching costs in the US seed industry: Technology adoption and welfare impacts

We evaluate the role of brand and technology switching costs in the US soybean seed industry using a unique dataset of actual seed purchases by about 28,000 farmers from 1996 to 2016. Using a random coefficients logit model of demand, we estimate brand and technology switching costs, characterize the distributions of buyers’ willingness to pay for seed brands and the glyphosate tolerance (GT) trait, and assess the implications of brand and technology switching costs for farmers’ welfare, technology adoption, firm profits, and firm market shares. We find that farmers are willing to pay large premiums for brand labels, and even larger premiums for the GT trait, although there is considerable heterogeneity in these values. Switching costs play an important role in the soybean seed industry. Eliminating these costs would significantly increase buyers’ welfare, reduce seed prices and firm profits, decrease adoption of the GT trait, and impact industry consolidation by expanding smaller firms’ market shares.     

Das Glühbirnendekret der EU – ein unnötiges Verbot

Since September 2009, the European market for household lamps is subject to EU regulation 244/2009, which enforces the gradual phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. As of September 2012, only energy-efficient lighting sources such as halogen lamps, light-emitting diodes (LED), or compact fluorescent lamps—often referred to as energy-saving lamps—will be allowed for sale. The EU’s justification for the phase-out of conventional light bulbs maintains that a reduction in the electricity consumed will not only lead to lower energy costs for private households and industrial consumers, but at the same time lead to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. This article discusses possible reasons for the slow market diffusion of energy-saving lamps and shows that the investment in energy-efficient lamps does not necessarily lead to significant cost reductions in every case. Drawing on some illustrative examples, we demonstrate that the use of cheaper incandescent bulbs instead of energy-saving lamps can be economically rational in cases of rather low usage times, in which the higher initial purchasing price might only pay off after very long time spans. Furthermore, due to the coexistence with the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), this regulation will not lead to any additional reduction of carbon emissions exceeding the amount caused by the ETS. We thus conclude that the general ban of incandescent light bulbs is inappropriate and should be abolished by the Commission.     

Is business lobbying in the European Union context-dependent? Evidence from the policy field of radio spectrum

This paper investigates contextual factors which impact on how business lobbying is carried out in radio spectrum policy in the European Union (EU). Based on the empirical evidence collected by means of ten expert interviews, the following considerations are drawn: first, the European Commission (hereafter “the Commission”) weighs highly information provided by corporate stakeholders which is in line with the EU objective to promote EU-wide coordinated use of radio spectrum. Second, the way the Council of the EU (hereafter “the Council”) is lobbied at EU level is unclear because of lack of transparency in the Council. Third, radio spectrum policy issues require niche expertise to be addressed because of high degree of complexity. Fourth, radio spectrum policy issues are characterised by low degree of salience as they are too technical for the wider public. Although centred on the EU context, the issues raised in this study, such as lack of transparency and civil society underrepresentation, are not unique to the EU system. In this respect, comparative studies between the EU and other institutional contexts may contribute to a better understanding of variation in business lobbying.     

Acquisition announcements and stock market valuations of acquiring firms' rivals: A test of the growth probability hypothesis in China

To examine the impact of acquisition announcements on the stock market returns of rivals of the acquiring firms, we propose a growth probability hypothesis: when an acquisition is announced, it signals the potential for future growth in the acquirer's industry to the market, resulting in positive stock market reactions to rivals of the acquiring firms. We test the growth probability hypothesis with a longitudinal sample of Chinese domestic and cross‐border acquisitions during 1993–2008. The results provide robust support for this hypothesis as a means to explain market reactions to rivals of acquiring firms. We also empirically test and negate alternative theoretical explanations advanced in prior literature to explain positive market reactions to rivals of the target firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Potential economic impacts of zero thresholds for unapproved GMOs: The EU case

As the pipeline of new biotech crops has continued to expand, regulatory approvals of such crops across different countries have become less synchronized. As a result, some biotech crops can be cultivated in one or more countries but may not be approved for use in others. Under such circumstances, small amounts of unapproved biotech crops can be found in the food/feed supplies of some countries and under zero threshold policies they must be withdrawn and can lead to market disruptions. In this paper we examine the potential economic implications of regulatory asynchronicity and zero threshold policies for unapproved GMOs using the EU as a case study. To measure the potential economic impacts from possible trade disruptions between the EU and its major suppliers of soybeans, we develop a spatial equilibrium model and examine alternative scenarios where bilateral trade flows are set to zero. From our analysis we find that when asynchronous approvals become a systemic problem leading to trade disruptions with multiple trading partners the impacts can be severe. For instance, we find that if the EU were to stop imports from its three main suppliers the US, Brazil and Argentina, it would pay roughly 220% more for soybeans, 211% more for soybean meal and 202% more for soy oil.     

Handel mit Grünstromzertifikaten bei Existenz von Emissionszielen: Gewinner und Verlierer in der EU

Within the development goal for the use of renewable energies in the EU, after the publishing of the directive proposal from the European Commission on January 23, an intensive discussion is taking place as to if and how the trade of green electricity certificates should occur. A motion from the opposition in the Bundestag explicitly asks to favour the proposal. Recently the opinion of the EU parliament was submitted that proposes numerous changes. The present article leaves the discussion of details about the possible organization of such a system and analyses the impacts of a green electricity certificate trade with emission targets on state level. It is shown that with the currently discussed conditions the Member States have few incentives to buy green electricity certificates as the overall costs to fulfil the emission and green electricity targets could rise. The national fulfilment of green electricity targets could therefore be cheaper in an overall view. However, it is unclear if such plans are compatible with the rules of the EU internal market. Therefore there could be “forced losers” among EU member states.