Competition

Competition is the result of several companies offering the same or similar products or services. When this occurs, those products or services are offered for sale at low prices.

Collaborative economy ·
IW News ·
2 Jun 2016

Dreaming of Digital Unity

Diverse regulation in the EU member states prevents online platforms such as collaborative platforms like Uber or Airbnb from scaling up. In order to create a consistent framework, the EU Commission has put forward an agenda for the collaborative economy today – without extreme restrictions of business activities. This is appropriate and long overdue.

EU Data Protection Regulation ·
IW News ·
16 Dec 2015

Too late, too general

After four years of negotiations, the EU has reached an agreement about the Data Protection Reform. It will replace a patchwork of 28 national regulations and strengthen user rights. But particularly the so-called right to data portability might eventually harm competition.

Vera Demary / Matthias Diermeier ·
IW-Trends ·
26 Nov 2015

Mergers and Acquisitions in German Industry

Heading for Industry 4.0?

The Sharing Economy ·
Press Release ·
15 Jul 2015

The need for political action is growing

Be it cars, beds or books, more than ever before is being used collaboratively in what has come to be known as the sharing economy. In this field, however, Europe lags far behind the USA. To make its markets more attractive to companies in the sector, Europe urgently needs to create uniform rules for start-ups, reduce administrative hurdles and make access to risk capital easier. These are the conclusions of an analysis conducted by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW).

Vera Demary ·
IW-Policy Paper ·
15 Jul 2015

Competition in the Sharing Economy

Sharing goods, services or knowledge is at the center of the so-called Sharing Economy. Businesses are usually based on online platforms that match demand and supply which is in many cases, but not...

Perfect competition is not the only market structure, however. Other possible market structures feature few or only a single supplier, as in the case of a monopoly. The structure of the market and the behaviour of the market participants determine the market result.

The aim of competition policy is to promote competition and to prevent the abuse of market power. Digitization, in particular, has brought new market structures and thus also placed new demands on competition policy.