Margin Squeeze: Theory, Practice, Policy

Margin squeeze occurs where the margin between the price charged by a vertically integrated firm for a wholesale input, and its own retail price for the end product incorporating the input, is so low as to foreclose one or more affected markets. The extent to which margin squeeze should constitute a discrete competition law offence, distinct from predation or refusal to deal, is a disputed question. A jurisprudential chasm between the approaches to margin squeeze under European Union competition law and United States antitrust has emerged, following the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgments in Deutsche Telekom and TeliaSonera and the US Supreme Court’s decision in LinkLine. The EU recognises a broad concept of margin squeeze, applicable in any sector; the US does not recognise margin squeeze as a standalone abuse, and moreover, the presence of sector-specific regulation excludes the application of antitrust to the price levels that comprise the squeeze. This paper explores the margin squeeze concept, with particular attention to both areas of contention

Collateral Damage: Private Merger Lawsuits in the Wake of Section 2’s Contraction

For over 100 years, the Clayton Act has ostensibly prohibited anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions. Yet, as fears of market concentration and market power grow, it seems high time for a boost in enforcement. Armed with statutory causes of action for injunctive relief and treble damages, private plaintiffs could provide that needed boost. However, these plaintiffs face an unexpected hurdle to enforcing the merger laws: section 2 of the Sherman Act. This Note argues that the narrowing of liability under section 2 over the past three decades has had a collateral impact on private plaintiffs’—especially rival firms’—ability to satisfy the antitrust injury requirement to challenge an anticompetitive merger. The 1986 Supreme Court decision in Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc. requires plaintiffs to allege that newly merged firms will act anticompetitively in a way that injures the plaintiffs. To make such allegations successfully, plaintiffs must rely on accepted theories of antitrust liability, which will often sound in the predatory behaviors prohibited by section 2. But as section 2 has shrunk, so too has the ability to challenge the merger

Computing the lowest eigenvalues of the Fermion matrix by subspace iterations

Subspace iterations are used to minimise a generalised Ritz functional of a large, sparse Hermitean matrix. In this way, the lowest $m$ eigenvalues are determined. Tests with $1 \leq m \leq 32$ demonstrate that the computational cost (no. of matrix multiplies) does not increase substantially with $m$. This implies that, as compared to the case of a $m=1$, the additional eigenvalues are obtained for free.Comment: Talk presented at LATTICE96(algorithms), 3 pages, 2 Postscript figures, uses epsf.sty, espcrc2.st

A Biomechanical Model of Human Oculomotor Plant Kinematics Based Upon Geometric Algebra

A biomechanical model of the human oculomotor plant kinematics in 3-D as a function of muscle length changes is presented. It can represent a range of alternative interpretations of the data as a function of one parameter. The model is free from such deficits as singularities and the nesting of axes found in alternative formulations such as the spherical wrist (Paul, l98l). The equations of motion are defined on a quaternion based representation of eye rotations and are compact atnd computationally efficient.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (90-0128, F49620-92-J-0225); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (AFOSR 90-0083); Office of Naval Research (N00014-92-J-l309

Trade and the Environment: Equilibrium or Imbalance?

Review of Greening the GATT: Trade, Environment, and the Future by Daniel C. Esty; Freer Trade, Protected Environment: Balancing Trade Liberalization and Environmental Interests by C.Ford Runge, François Ortalo-Magné, and Philip Vande Kamp; Trade and the Environment: The Search for Balance (James Cameron, Paul Demaret & Damien Geradin, eds.); and Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy by David Voge

Regulatory authorities in the EU information and communications technology sectors: The role of trust and transparency in watching the watchdog

Our research starts from the general observation that everywhere around the globe, an increasing number of regulatory tasks, traditionally falling under the responsibility of government, are being transferred to so-called independent regulatory authorities (i.e. independent from market actors, but quite often, also from political actors). This is, for instance, the case in the recently liberalized network industries (e.g. energy, railways), but also in the financial or the audiovisual media sector. In some cases (e.g. the electronic communications sector in the European Union), powers attributed to these regulatory authorities even prevent other, more democratically legitimate, institutions, like governments or parliaments, to interfere with the regulatory policy (cf. Judgment 424/07 of the Court of Justice in the German regulatory holidays case of December 3rd, 2009). Especially in that case, the question becomes: who's watching the watchdog? --Independent regulatory bodies,regulation,media and communications law

The Logic & Limits of the Exceptional Circumstances Test in Magill and IMS Health

In this Article, we show that, in contrast to the Commission\u27s balancing approach in Microsoft, the ECJ\u27s narrow construction of the obligation to license IP under Article 82 of the EC Treaty is based on sound economics and constitutes appropriate public policy. The set of “exceptional circumstances” listed in Magill and IMS Health constitutes a reasonable implementation of the optimal legal standard for the assessment of refusals to licence IP: modified per se legality. In the IP context, an obligation to make property available is a requirement for compulsory licensing. The ECJ test limits compulsory licensing to those situations in which the prospective social benefits of licensing are large, while the negative effects of reducing the incentives to innovate are small. The ECJ test ensures that intervention is restricted to cases where the intervention is still likely to increase social welfare. The Commission\u27s test in Microsoft, being a balancing test, does not. As noted by Professor Gerardin, “balancing ex ante vs. ex post efficiencies is obviously a very difficult process, which even the most sophisticated economists may find daunting. The risk of mistaken decisions is therefore high.

An optimization method for dynamics of structures with repetitive component patterns

The occurrence of dynamic problems during the operation of machinery may have devastating effects on a product. Therefore, design optimization of these products becomes essential in order to meet safety criteria. In this research, a hybrid design optimization method is proposed where attention is focused on structures having repeating patterns in their geometries. In the proposed method, the analysis is decomposed but the optimization problem itself is treated as a whole. The model of an entire structure is obtained without modeling all the repetitive components using the merits of the Component Mode Synthesis method. Backpropagation Neural Networks are used for surrogate modeling. The optimization is performed using two techniques: Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP). GAs are utilized to increase the chance of finding the location of the global optimum and since this optimum may not be exact, SQP is employed afterwards to improve the solution. A theoretical test problem is used to demonstrate the method

C1-continuous space-time discretization based on Hamilton's law of varying action

We develop a class of C1-continuous time integration methods that are applicable to conservative problems in elastodynamics. These methods are based on Hamilton's law of varying action. From the action of the continuous system we derive a spatially and temporally weak form of the governing equilibrium equations. This expression is first discretized in space, considering standard finite elements. The resulting system is then discretized in time, approximating the displacement by piecewise cubic Hermite shape functions. Within the time domain we thus achieve C1-continuity for the displacement field and C0-continuity for the velocity field. From the discrete virtual action we finally construct a class of one-step schemes. These methods are examined both analytically and numerically. Here, we study both linear and nonlinear systems as well as inherently continuous and discrete structures. In the numerical examples we focus on one-dimensional applications. The provided theory, however, is general and valid also for problems in 2D or 3D. We show that the most favorable candidate -- denoted as p2-scheme -- converges with order four. Thus, especially if high accuracy of the numerical solution is required, this scheme can be more efficient than methods of lower order. It further exhibits, for linear simple problems, properties similar to variational integrators, such as symplecticity. While it remains to be investigated whether symplecticity holds for arbitrary systems, all our numerical results show an excellent long-term energy behavior.Comment: slightly condensed the manuscript, added references, numerical results unchange