Fifth MaCCI Annual Conference at ZEW

On March 3 and 4, 2016, the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) and the University of Mannheim jointly organised the fifth annual conference of the Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI). About 95 participants, including many renowned researchers and practitioners, attended the event to discuss cutting-edge and highly relevant research issues with regard to competition and innovation from an economic and legal perspective.

The three keynote speeches by Pierre Larouche (Tilburg University), Christopher Yoo (University of Philadelphia) and William E. Kovacic (King’s College London) marked the highlights of the conference. In their speeches, Larouche and Yoo addressed the topic of privacy on the Internet from a European and US perspective, respectively. Kovacic discussed the phenomenon that competition and regulatory authorities may obtain concessions in several parallel proceedings if they threaten – in the event of a low willingness to cooperate in one proceeding – to make use of their leeway of judgement in other proceedings.

At the core of the conference were, as every year, the parallel sessions, which featured 45 cutting-edge research contributions from the fields of economics and law presented by the respective authors in a 30-minute lecture and afterwards discussed by another researcher or practitioner with a similar focus. Of particular interest were those sessions with a focus on currently much discussed topics among experts, such as price parity clauses, minority shareholding and the adjustment of competition law to online markets.

Researchers and practitioners exchange ideas

High-profile speakers from the fields of industrial and competition economics, such as Luís Cabral (New York University), Jay Pil Choi (Michigan State University), Patrick Rey (Toulouse School of Economics) or Yossi Spiegel (Tel Aviv University), not only contributed to the conference with their presentations but also with their frequent comments, which provided valuable ideas especially to young researchers.

Just like in the previous years, the aim of the conference to promote the exchange between researchers from the fields of economics and law on the one hand, and between science and practice on the other hand, was thereby achieved. The sixth MaCCI Annual Conference is scheduled for March 2017. Until then, however, MaCCI will host a number of further events this year, e.g. the Mannheim Energy Conference on May 19 and 20.

The Mannheim Centre for Competition and Innovation (MaCCI), funded by the State of Baden-Württemberg and the Leibniz Association, promotes the exchange between researchers from the fields of law and economy and thus provides fresh impetus in terms of competition policy, regulation, and innovation. MaCCI is a joint project of ZEW and the School of Law and Economics at the University of Mannheim. Core topics analysed by MaCCI include vertical competition restraints, abuse of market power, merger control, public and private enforcement of competition law, regulations in the telecommunications and energy market, and competition in the health sector.

For more information please contact:

Stefan Frübing, Phone +49(0)621/1235-328, E-mail fruebing@zew.de