IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hig/wpaper/26-pa-2015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Discovering the Miracle of Large Numbers of Antitrust Investigations in Russia: The Role of Competition Authority Incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Svetlana Avdasheva

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

  • Dina Tsytsulina

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

  • Svetlana Golovanova

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

  • Yelena Sidorova

    (National Research University Higher School of Economics)

Abstract

Many antitrust investigations in Russia continue to present a challenge for the assessment of competition policy and international enforcement ratings. On the one hand, many infringement decisions may be interpreted as an indicator of high enforcement efforts in the context of rigid competition restrictions and the significant related harm to social welfare. On the other hand, many investigations proceed under poor legal and economic standards; therefore, the impact of decisions and remedies on competition is questionable. In fact, large number of investigations may indicate the ineffectiveness of antitrust enforcement. The article explains the possible effects of antitrust enforcement in Russia. Using a unique dataset of the appeals of infringement decisions from 2008-2012, we classify the investigated cases according to their potential impact on competition. A case-level analysis reveals that the majority of cases would never be investigated under an appropriate understanding of the goals of antitrust enforcement, restrictions on competition and basic cost-benefit assessments of agency activity. There are diverse explanations for the distorted structure of enforcement, including the incompleteness and imperfection of sector-specific regulations, rules concerning citizen complaints against the executive authorities and the incentives of competition authorities. Our analysis shows that competition agencies tend to pay more attention to the investigation of cases, which requires less input and, at the same time, results in infringement decisions with a lower probability of being annulled

Suggested Citation

  • Svetlana Avdasheva & Dina Tsytsulina & Svetlana Golovanova & Yelena Sidorova, 2015. "Discovering the Miracle of Large Numbers of Antitrust Investigations in Russia: The Role of Competition Authority Incentives," HSE Working papers WP BRP 26/PA/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hig:wpaper:26/pa/2015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hse.ru/data/2015/04/02/1096590297/26PA2015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph Farrell & Michael Katz, 2006. "The Economics of Welfare Standards in Antitrust," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 2.
    2. Michael R. Baye & Joshua D. Wright, 2011. "Is Antitrust Too Complicated for Generalist Judges? The Impact of Economic Complexity and Judicial Training on Appeals," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 1-24.
    3. Jordi Gual & Núria Mas, 2011. "Industry Characteristics and Anti-Competitive Behavior: Evidence from the European Commission’s Decisions," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 39(3), pages 207-230, November.
    4. Martin Carree & Andrea Günster & Maarten Schinkel, 2010. "European Antitrust Policy 1957–2004: An Analysis of Commission Decisions," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(2), pages 97-131, March.
    5. Posner, Richard A, 1970. "A Statistical Study of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 365-419, October.
    6. Avdasheva, Svetlana & Kryuchkova, Polina, 2015. "The ‘reactive’ model of antitrust enforcement: When private interests dictate enforcement actions – The Russian case," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 200-208.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrey V. Makarov, 2016. "Anti-Competitive Agreements in Russian Courts (2008 - 2012): Antitrust Law Implementation and Interpetation," HSE Working papers WP BRP 67/LAW/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    2. Pavlova, Natalia & Shastitko, Andrey, 2016. "Leniency programs and socially beneficial cooperation: Effects of type I errors," Russian Journal of Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 375-401.
    3. John Davies, 2018. "‘Outcome’ Assessment: What Exactly Are We Measuring? A Personal Reflection on Measuring the Outcomes from Competition Agencies’ Interventions," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 7-22, March.
    4. Andrey V. Makarov, 2014. "Comparative Analusis Of Antitrust Policy Against Collusion In Some Transition Economies: Challenges For Effectiveness," HSE Working papers WP BRP 20/PA/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sidorova, Elena & Golovanova, Svetlana & Avdasheva, Svetlana, 2019. "How to measure the quality of court decisions? A case of commercial courts," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 54, pages 126-143.
    2. Humphery-Jenner, M., 2011. "Diversification in Private Equity Funds : On Knowledge-sharing, Risk-aversion and Limited-attention," Other publications TiSEM 072b8035-9fb0-4f18-9c1b-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Сидорова Е. Е., 2019. "Оценка Качества Работы Судей В Контексте Антимонопольного Регулирования," Вопросы государственного и муниципального управления // Public administration issues, НИУ ВШЭ, issue 3, pages 67-87.
    4. Florian Smuda & Patrice Bougette & Kai Hüschelrath, 2015. "Determinants of the Duration of European Appellate Court Proceedings in Cartel Cases," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1352-1369, November.
    5. Svetlana Avdasheva & Svetlana Golovanova & Elena Sidorova, 2022. "Does judicial effort matter for quality? Evidence from antitrust proceedings in Russian commercial courts," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 425-450, June.
    6. Fatih Cemil ÖZBUĞDAY & Erik BROUWER, 2016. "Measuring the Extent of European State Aid Control: An Econometric Analysis of the European Commission Decisions," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 24(30).
    7. Yannis Katsoulacos, 2019. "On the choice of legal standards: a positive theory for comparative analysis," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 125-165, October.
    8. Yannis Katsoulacos & Galateia Makri & Eleni Metsiou, 2019. "Antitrust Enforcement in Europe in the Last 25 Years: Developments and Challenges," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 55(1), pages 5-26, August.
    9. Jovanovic, Dragan & Wey, Christian, 2012. "An equilibrium analysis of efficiency gains from mergers," DICE Discussion Papers 64, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    10. Svetlana Avdasheva & Svetlana Golovanova, 2017. "Oil explains all: desirable organisation of the Russian fuel markets (on the data of three waves of antitrust cases against oil companies)," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 198-215, April.
    11. Marselli, Riccardo & McCannon, Bryan C. & Vannini, Marco, 2015. "Bargaining in the shadow of arbitration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 356-368.
    12. Russell Pittman, 2007. "Consumer Surplus as the Appropriate Standard for Antitrust Enforcement," EAG Discussions Papers 200709, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    13. Magnus Söderberg, 2008. "Uncertainty and regulatory outcome in the Swedish electricity distribution sector," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 79-94, February.
    14. Patrice Bougette & Stéphane Turolla, 2006. "Merger Remedies at the European Commission: A Multinomial Logit Analysis," Post-Print halshs-00466603, HAL.
    15. Christopher S Decker & William Corcoran & David T Flynn, 2011. "Shipwrecks on the Great Lakes and the Lake Carriers Association," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 450-469.
    16. Kenneth Heyer, 2014. "Consumer Welfare and the Legacy of Robert Bork," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 19-32.
    17. Grajzl, Peter & Baniak, Andrzej, 2018. "Private enforcement, corruption, and antitrust design," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 284-307.
    18. Yasunori Ouchida & Daisaku Goto, 2016. "Cournot duopoly and environmental R&D under regulator’s precommitment to an emissions tax," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(5), pages 324-331, March.
    19. Valentiny, Pál, 2019. "Közgazdaságtan a jogalkalmazásban [Forensic economics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 134-162.
    20. V. Bageri & Y. Katsoulacos, 2017. "The market power requirement in antitrust enforcement and its usefulness," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 44(2), pages 145-159, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    antitrust enforcement; authorities’ incentives; harm; Russia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hig:wpaper:26/pa/2015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shamil Abdulaev or Shamil Abdulaev (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hsecoru.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.