Concentration and public policies in the broadcasting industry: the future of television

New technologies are deeply transforming the broadcasting industry. What we have seen so far is only the beginning of a long story. Inevitably, industry regulations must adapt, which means that a wide-ranging rethink of current practices is required. In order to assess the likely evolution of the industry, this article decomposes it into a number of components, from conception of programmes to their broadcasting, including distribution, storage and licensing. Contrary to popular expectations, the analysis suggests that the current high degree of concentration will, if anything, increase. The policy implication is that regulation, so far driven by now obsolete technological constraints, should increasingly emphasize promoting competition.     

Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2013–2014

The Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission enforces competition law in the areas of antitrust, merger control, and state aids. In 2013–2014 important antitrust decisions (Samsung and Motorola) were in the area of standard essential patents. In merger control the European Commission carried out an ex-post evaluation of past mergers in the INEOS/Solvay case in order to obtain valuable insights for the merger under review. In state aid, as a part of the State Aid Modernisation programme, guidelines were prepared to help EU member states to design and carry out ex post assessments of state aid schemes.     

Multinationals without Advantages

We question the widespread argument that firms embarking on foreign direct investments must possess some specific advantages to offset the penalties of operating across national and cultural boundaries. A simple model shows that firms might invest abroad to capture local advantages through geographical proximity of plant location, rather than to exploit existing ones. Because of spatially bounded spillovers, laggard firms might use foreign investments to acquire location-specific knowledge, whereas leading firms might prefer costly exports to avoid the dissipation of their advantages.
JEL classification: F 23; O 32; L 22     

The Effect of EU Antitrust Investigations and Fines on a Firm's Valuation

EU antitrust investigations involve a sequence of events which affect the investigated firm's market value. We model these relationships and estimate their impact on firms' share prices. On average, a surprise inspection reduces a firm's share price by 2.89%, an infringement decision reduces it by 3.57%. The Court judgments do not have a statistically significant effect. Overall, we find that the total effect of the antitrust action ranges from ?3.03% to ?4.55% of a firm's market value. Fines account for no more than 8.9% of this loss, and we conjecture that most of the loss is due to the cessation of illegal activities.     

Eastern European Economic Integration and Foreign Direct Investment

Economic transition in Eastern Europe should generate market growth. In addition, current discussions on economic integration and the development of a free-trade area in Eastern Europe will improve market accessibility. These two forces will significantly affect the strategies by which external firms will choose to supply markets in Eastern Europe. This paper examines the ways in which supply strategy is likely to change. We show that both market growth and improved market accessibility will lead the external firms to switch from exporting to foreign direct investment. However, market growth is likely to lead to dispersed investment in the growing economies, whereas increased market accessibility, by establishing an integrated regional bloc in Eastern Europe, is more likely to lead to concentrated investment plus infra-regional exports to the remainder of the regional bloc. The switch from exporting to local production through foreign direct investment will favor consumers through lowered prices but will harm national producers by depressing profit margins.     

Incentives,Capital Budgeting,and Organizational Structure

Divisional managers compete for financial resources in what is often referred to as an internal capital market. They also have a common interest in maximizing corporate profits, as this determines the resources available to the firm as a whole. Both goals are powerful motivators but can at times conflict: while the amount of resources available to the firm depends on corporate performance, divisional funding depends upon the division's performance relative to the rest. We propose a model in which organizational form is endogenous, divisions compete for corporate resources, and managers have implicit incentives. We show that organizational design can help companies influence their divisional managers' potentially conflicting goals. Our analysis relates the firm's organizational structure to the source of incentives (external vs. internal), the nature of the incentives (competition vs. cooperation), the level of corporate diversification, the development of the capital market, and to industry and firm characteristics.     

Exclusive Dealing: Investment Promotion May Facilitate Inefficient Foreclosure

This paper studies a model whereby exclusive dealing (ED) can both promote investment and foreclose a more efficient supplier. Since ED promotes the incumbent seller's investment, the seller and the buyer realize a greater surplus from bilateral trade under exclusivity. Hence, the parties involved may sign an ED contract that excludes a more efficient entrant in circumstances where ED would not arise absent investment. The paper therefore invites a more cautious attitude towards accepting possible investment promotion arguments as a defense for ED.     

Acquisition of Information and Share Prices: An Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Dissonance

Abstract. This paper deals with the determinants of agents' acquisition of information. Our econometric evidence shows that the general index of Italian share‐prices and the series of Italy's financial newspaper sales are cointegrated, and the former series Granger‐causes the latter, thereby giving support to the cognitive dissonance hypothesis: (non‐professional) agents tend to buy the newspaper when share prices are high and not to buy it when share prices are low. Instead, we do not find support for the hypothesis that the agents acquire information in order to trade in the stock market: we find no relationship between quantities exchanged in the market and newspaper sales, nor between stock market volatility and newspaper sales.