Product Strategy and Antitrust: A Consumer Choice Perspective

Traditionally antitrust law is strongly tied to price theory economics so that prices, costs, profits, and profit sacrifice are typically examined in antitrust cases. This paper proposes broadening traditional antitrust analysis to also explicitly examine the likely effect of allegedly anticompetitive conduct on product options and consumer choice. In order to accomplish this task, this paper proposes that various aspects of marketing strategy should be considered when examining product strategies that are accused of being anticompetitive. This paper further suggests that the current list of inconsistently and poorly defined product strategies used by the courts be augmented by three more straight forward but overlapping categories based on impact on consumer choice: Lock‐Outs, Lock‐Ins, and Hold‐Ups.     

Maintaining New Markets: Explaining Antitrust Enforcement in Central and Eastern Europe

While others have examined the implementation and/or the stringency of enforcement of antitrust laws in post-socialist economies, this paper is the first study that attempts to explain the patterns of antitrust enforcement activity across post-socialist countries using economic and political variables. Using a panel of ten European post-socialist countries over periods ranging from 4 to 11?years, we find a number of significant factors associated with enforcement in these countries. For example, our results suggest that countries characterized by more unionization and less corruption tend to engage in greater antitrust enforcement of all types. Countries more successful in privatizing have filed fewer cases, while more affluent or developed countries investigate fewer cases of all types, consistent with an income-shifting motivation for antitrust. In general, countries have tended to increase their enforcement efforts over time.     

Enforcement Activity in Consumer Protection Regulation in Croatia

The law regulating consumer protection in the Republic of Croatia began its intensive development through the process of harmonization of Croatian legislation with EU law. Apart from the approximation of Croatian legislation with the acquis, in the pre-accession process, Croatia also undertook obligations to introduce and develop corresponding mechanisms for the efficient enforcement of consumer protection in practice. The development of consumer protection policy was recognized as a priority area in Croatia, and even before full membership, the process of implementing new directives in the area of consumer protection ran almost in parallel to and at the same pace as that of the Member States. Alongside the harmonization of its legislation with the EU consumer acquis, Croatia started developing a regulatory enforcement structure, including a whole series of mechanisms to achieve individual and collective protection of consumer rights. Among other things, the satisfactory development of regulatory enforcement activities in consumer protection was one of the preconditions for the successful completion of the accession negotiations and for signing the accession treaty. At the same time, the article suggests that in the area of both the individual and collective realization of consumer protection, there is a need for further progress through, on the one hand, developing administrative capacities and enhancing access to justice, as well as developing a system of out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes on the other.     

Riding the Wave: Consumer Economics and the Consumer Movement in the United States

The development and current state of the scholarly field of Consumer Economics in the United States is discussed in relation to the Consumer Movement and other forces that have impinged upon it. Membership in the American Council on Consumer Interests, the scholarly organization for consumer economists, is used as one measure of the size and health of the field. Other forces impinging on the field that are discussed include: the baby boom induced increase in the demand for college education; the subsequent decline in the support for higher education as higher education costs rose throughout the 1980s and 1990s; the decline in the Federal Government's support for consumer research and consumer education; and the development of competing organizations.     

A Next Step in Debt Enforcement: the Merger of Debt Help and Debt Collection

Since the 1990s, each Member State of the European Union designed a policy that infused the liberal American fresh start policy into its own social institutions and legal culture. Especially in countries with a civil law tradition, the legal position of the consumer has improved. The paradigm of lifelong liability of debts has been replaced by a form of limited liability. Discharge of debts has established itself as a firm legal principle in all European jurisdictions. In most European countries, the new approach consists of a combination of legal and extrajudicial instruments. Under the umbrella of the courts, social workers, trustees, and administrators perform a broad range of activities in monitoring and helping debtors. The so-called new-chance approach has dramatically changed the playing field amongst debtors and creditors. The new legal equilibrium worked rather well in most European countries in the 1990s and 2000s. However, the systems are obviously far from perfect as almost all European governments are still fine-tuning their laws. Recently, two innovations have appeared on the European stage: Some Nordic countries have opted for a centralized state-controlled enforcement system, while in the UK, commercial debt management plans were developed, mainly by commercial suppliers. In 2005, the US Bankruptcy Code was changed in favour of the creditors. The 2008 credit crunch and its aftermath present a window of opportunity for the next step in the modernization of debt enforcement policy. I will suggest a merger of the fields of debt relief and debt collection, with a pivotal role for independent trustees.     

Understanding the Enforcement Malfunction of Consumer Legislation in Serbia

The new Serbian Law on Consumer Protection was passed in October 2010, and its enactment and general outlook may be attributed to the continuous political pressure and financial and technical support by the European Union (EU). This paper outlines several factors that may have contributed to the weakness of enforcement in Serbia, so that while consumer legislation is fairly harmonized with the EU acquis, national standards of consumer protection lag behind those in the EU. These tentative explanations of the enforcement malfunction include (1) the lack of institutional capacity to receive the professional and technical support of the EU, (2) external pressure as the main incentive for legislative change, (3) the lack of belief in the social relevance of legislative changes as such, (4) the deficiency of the enforcement mechanisms and the lack of appreciation of their importance, and (5) the absence of cooperation between the stakeholders and institutional resistance to change. Consumer protection is not an exceptional field characterized by the risks of enforcement failure. Moreover, the difficulties described in the article are not limited to Serbia, as they also happen in other jurisdictions, even if in different shapes and forms. The success of aligning the national norms to those of the EU and the success of legal transplants in general are always quite uncertain. In that sense, the case of consumer policy in Serbia should be understood as an instance that may illuminate a class of phenomena.     

Consumer Interests and the Ethical Implications of Marketing: A Contingency Framework

The increasing efforts by marketers to target diverse groups of consumers call for a closer examination of the ethical implications of market segmentation and differentiated marketing. Previous research suggests that marketers and consumers often differ in their perceptions of marketing ethics. Based on contingency theory, this research proposes an integrated framework—which includes the nature of the product, consumer characteristics, and market selection—to analyze the ethical complexities of the marketing exchange. Interactions among these factors lead to various contingencies with different ethical implications for marketing managers and public policy makers. Marketers should assess consumer interests and the ethics of marketing programs before their implementation     

电子商务中消费者权益保护的经济分析

在电子商务环境下 ,经营者和消费者的信息不对称尤其严重 ,这使得电子商务中的消费者权益保护问题更为突出。采用不完全信息的动态博弈模型对电子商务中的消费者权益保护问题进行深入的分析 ,同时 ,为了减少电子商务中经营者和消费者之间的信息不对称 ,以维护电子商务中消费者的权益 ,必须制定相应措施     

论消费者权益保护的范式转换

消费者权益保护存在抽象交易范式、具体交易范式、消费行为范式、服务合同范式等。抽象交易范式中,消费者属基于配平交易关系需要顾及到的主体之一,其保护不具独立意义,客观上得到制度性关照在于保护获得平等的交易机会。具体交易范式以德国立法例为代表,其通过与经营者营业或职业行为对照,确立消费者全方位弱的弱者地位,权益保护的目的旨在实现具体交易公平。消费行为范式以生活消费界定消费者概念,消费行为属自然人民事主体资格的组成部分,具有超越于商事行为的法律价值,为消费者权益保护提供私法层面的解释。服务合同范式立足于生活消费在服务业主导产业结构下的时代特征,实现消费者概念向民法典民事主体制度的回归,并促进经营者商行为伦理性的现代重塑。     

跨境电商中的消费者权益保护法

随着互联网和经济的高速发展,跨境电商作为一种新型购物模式逐渐兴起,掀起了一阵消费狂潮,但跨境电商还存在一些弊端,本文将从消费者权益保护法角度出发,分析当代跨境电商现状,并对跨境电商提出一些合理建议。     

国际银行业并购浪潮及其对我国银行业的启示

近年来，国际银行业的兼并重组浪潮迭起，对银行业的格局产生了深刻的影响，大银行通过并购逐步走向垄断和集中，实力不断增强。而我国商业银行国际竞争能力较低。因此要缩小与国外银行的差距。我国商业银行也要通过兼并收购的方式来增强自身实力，以便于在２１世纪的强强竞争中赢得一席之地。     

The Impact of EU Norms and Policies on Consumer Protection Enforcement in Serbia

Pursuant to its 2008 Stabilization and Association Agreement governing the process of EU integration, Serbia is obliged to align its consumer protection standards (including those related to enforcement) with those of the EU. This article considers the overall approach to enforcement of consumer law in Serbia, focussing in particular on the extent to which EU enforcement principles have been successfully exported to Serbia and whether the goals of EU consumer policy have been achieved. It argues that the incorporation of EU norms has brought fundamental changes to Serbian enforcement mechanisms at a formal level, such as in relation to mediation processes as well as the introduction of injunctions for the protection of collective consumer interests. In practice, however, the impact of this incorporation is quite limited. A number of factors that restrict the practical effectiveness of the mediation processes and injunctions required by EU law are explored in the article, including weak sanctions, excessive reliance on poorly resourced consumer organizations, absence of a business culture of compliance or a sophisticated and determined consumer protection enforcement culture sufficiently grounded in expertise, as well as an overarching political, legislative, and institutional instability. These factors also undermine the general aim of EU policy to achieve effective consumer protection enforcement in the Serbian context.     

Corporate Narratives of Information Society: Making Up the Mobile Consumer Subject

The purpose of the article is to study how corporate actors participate in the cultural construction of the Information Society. By means of a case study, the article explores how a multinational corporation is involved in forming consumer identities—making up the subjects of consumption—by shaping the interpretive repertoires and cultural practices that are available for consumers as members of the emerging information society. The article elaborates on the ways in which the corporation invokes a discourse of shareholder value in its visionary strategic narrative entitled Mobile Information Society, and how this discourse operates to mobilize consumer conduct in particular ways, by making up, framing and formatting the consumer as a mobile subject of the global economy. The article’s aim is to contribute to the empirical bases of policy debates about the roles and responsibilities of different market actors in the production of the information society.     

人工智能时代个性化定价行为的反垄断规制--从大数据杀熟展开

人工智能时代,数据规模显著扩张,算法能力持续优化。科技实力雄厚、市场力量强大的经营者凭借大数据与算法工具的紧密结合,收集和分析能够反映消费者特征和行为的相关信息,以无限接近消费者购买能力和支付意愿上限的方式对消费者实施个性化定价。个性化定价行为涉及对条件相同的交易相对人在交易价格上实施差别化待遇,可能构成反垄断法所禁止的价格歧视行为。但与以往反垄断实施重点关注的排他性价格歧视不同,个性化定价突出表现为直接针对终端消费者实施的剥削性价格歧视,且在具体情形下呈现出不同的限制竞争效果,引发消费者选择能力与选择范围的双重限制。鉴于此,个性化定价行为的反垄断规制需要准确识别涉案行为,综合判断竞争效果,慎重选择福利标准。对于同时降低消费者剩余和社会总福利的个性化定价行为,可认定其具有限制竞争效果且不具备正当理由,从而构成违法价格歧视;对于降低消费者剩余却提高社会总福利的个性化定价行为,如果选择消费者福利标准则可认定其构成违法价格歧视,如果选择社会总福利标准则可认定其具备正当理由;对于同时提高消费者剩余与社会总福利的个性化定价行为,因涉及消费者之间的剩余转移,对其竞争效果的评价仍待反垄断实施予以明确。     

跨国并购浪潮下中小企业发展的对策思考

跨国并购是伴随着经济全球化的发展而涌来的一股巨大浪潮,它给发展中国家及其企业带来了挑战和机遇。中国加入WTO后,随着更多领域对外资开放,跨国并购的影响将会愈加广泛和深入。中小企业作为中国经济发展的重要力量,在跨国并购浪潮的席卷之下面临强大的冲击,必须制定相应的对策措施。     

Unilateral Effects in Merger Analysis: Models,Merits, and Merger Policy

This paper models the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) unilateral effects merger policy using a sample of 192 investigations undertaken between 1993 and 2010. Statistical analysis shows that the number of significant rivals represents a reasonable structural proxy for the FTC’s merger challenge decision, although other variables, such as impediments to entry, fringe share, clear evidence of head-to-head competition between the merging firms, competitive effects’ evidence, and efficiency-related proxies, also affect the decision to challenge a merger. Some of these variables suggest that the innovations in the 2010 Merger Guidelines had already been applied in FTC merger analysis.