Deregulation, integration and market structure in European banking

This paper analyzes the impact of deregulation and market integration policies on the structure of European banking markets. It argues that whether European integration will lead to large increases in EU-wide concentration will depend on the extent to which competition in banking is based on endogenous sunk costs or, alternatively, on variable costs and exogenous sunk costs. The paper also highlights the role of own funds as a source of endogenous increasing returns. Finally, it proposes an empirical test of the dominant form of competition. This procedure is applied to data for eleven EU countries during the period 1981-1995.Deregulation; European banking markets;

Integration of EU banking markets, The

The goal of this paper is to provide an assessment of the EU policies that pursue the creation of a single banking market. The paper evaluates the degree of integration of EU banking markets, the impact of the integration process on the conduct, the structure and the performance of the industry at the EU level, and discusses whether current policies are the most appropriate instruments for market integration. After comparing the key features of EU policy with alternative methods of market opening, the analysis stresses that market opening in regulated markets such as banking faces a difficult trade-off between respect for domestic preferences and the elimination of regulations that protect local competitors and are not justified on efficiency grounds. The paper also provides an overview of recent research which has looked at different indicators of market integration in EU banking. Finally, it analyzes the impact of integration policies on the conduct, the structure and the performance of the banking industry. The conclusion provides an integrative assessment, summarizing the key results of the paper and evaluating the extent to which the changes in the degree of integration and the performance of the industry imply that the EU single market policies have achieved their objectives.integration policies; banking industry; European Union; market integration; regulated markets; market structure; single market;

Regulatory change in network industries: The Spanish experience

The 1990s witnessed significant regulatory changes in several Spanish network industries such as electricity, telecommunications, natural gas and oil. This article provides an assessment of these developments, trying to ascertain what goals policy-makers attempted to achieve with the deregulation process and to what extent the program has been successful.Desregulation nertworks telecoms electricity gas;

Construction of scale models in industrial design: the irruption of additive manufacturing. Rubrics proposal for an objective evaluation

Comunicació presentada a EDULEARN2019, 11th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (July 1-3, 2019, Palma, Mallorca, Spain).Recent studies corroborate the progressive implementation of Additive Manufacturing technologies (commonly known as 3D printing) in education, demonstrating several advantages. In the field of industrial design, the development of models during the design phase of product design helps designers in training to visualize their proposals. Today, 3D printing and traditional model-making techniques coexist in classrooms. With both techniques it is possible to achieve good results, but when it comes to evaluating them it is not so simple, since both ways of working are different and apparently the same evaluation criteria cannot be used in both cases, which could lead to comparative grievances. This work presents a series of rubrics that can help to evaluate the student's models in an objective way and under equal conditions, independently of the technique used: traditional o 3D printing. In order to do this, we started from a rubric made to evaluate traditional models, which was tested during a couple of academic years in other subject. This rubric was adapted to create a new rubric, which allowed to evaluate models made by 3D printing, looking for equivalent criteria with the previous rubric to guarantee a fair evaluation of both ways of working. The rubrics were tested experimentally in the subject ‘Prototypes: experimental workshop’, taught during the 4th year of the Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering at the Universitat Jaume I (Spain). Two groups of users assessed each work using these rubrics. The results showed, on the one hand, that both groups found it easy to evaluate the works using these rubrics, and on the other hand, that these rubrics allow for a fairly objective evaluation of the works, since the score obtained by both groups of users was very similar

Generalized Linear Models for Geometrical Current predictors. An application to predict garment fit

The aim of this paper is to model an ordinal response variable in terms of vector-valued functional data included on a vector-valued RKHS. In particular, we focus on the vector-valued RKHS obtained when a geometrical object (body) is characterized by a current and on the ordinal regression model. A common way to solve this problem in functional data analysis is to express the data in the orthonormal basis given by decomposition of the covariance operator. But our data present very important differences with respect to the usual functional data setting. On the one hand, they are vector-valued functions, and on the other, they are functions in an RKHS with a previously defined norm. We propose to use three different bases: the orthonormal basis given by the kernel that defines the RKHS, a basis obtained from decomposition of the integral operator defined using the covariance function, and a third basis that combines the previous two. The three approaches are compared and applied to an interesting problem: building a model to predict the fit of children’s garment sizes, based on a 3D database of the Spanish child population. Our proposal has been compared with alternative methods that explore the performance of other classifiers (Suppport Vector Machine and k-NN), and with the result of applying the classification method proposed in this work, from different characterizations of the objects (landmarks and multivariate anthropometric measurements instead of currents), obtaining in all these cases worst results

Industry characteristics and anti-competitive behavior: Evidence from the EU

In the EU, competition policy is based on three main pillars: antitrust, merger control and monitoring state aid. Our analysis focuses on antitrust policy. In this context, the Commission is concerned about restrictive agreements and practices that imply an abuse of market power. The objective of this paper is to analyze what are the main criteria used by the Commission when deciding on anti-competitive practices. In particular, our goal is to determine whether and to what extent the Commission takes into account economic analysis when deciding whether anti-competitive behavior has taken place. There is a very extensive industrial organization literature which provides the theoretical and empirical background that associates industry features with the likelihood of practices that restrict competition. However, the literature evaluating the competition authority's decisions is much scarcer and has focused mainly on the analysis of merger policy. Our paper contributes to fill this gap in the literature. We examine almost 2,000 cases submitted to the Commission for consideration from January 1999 to February 2004 with the aim of determining which industry characteristics led the Commission to decide against an investigated firm on antitrust grounds.Competition policy; Antitrust; European Commission; Mergers;

Design and manufacturing workshop using the design thinking methodology

Comunicació presentada al ICERI 2019 12th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (Seville, Spain. 11-13 November, 2019).The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the experience under the methodology of Design Thinking, using a workshop format. This workshop, which took place on October 18th and 19th, 2018, in the BUC (Biblioteca Urbana del Coneixement) building in Vila-real, was attended by about a hundred students who had been displaced from the EASD in Valencia. The objective was to create an artistic work for the municipality of Vila-real with the students collaboration. Design Thinking methodology was implemented to carry out the artistic work. The ultimate goal was not only to get an idea, it was important to build it. The students were able to follow the manufacturing process in collaboration with the KrionTM company that offered their Solid Surface product, which possibilities in design terms this company is currently exploring. This was done in the following months, as the manufacture required its time

Vertical industrial policy in the EU: an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of state aid

This paper assesses the effectiveness of vertical industrial policies within the European Union. Vertical industrial policy is defined as government support of specific firms or industries ("picking winners" or "supporting losers"). It is measured as state aid granted by Member States to the manufacturing sectors, with the aim to analyse to what extent this government intervention affects the growth of multifactor productivity (MFP) in manufacturing. The analysis is conducted with both sectoral and horizontal aid, since in many cases vertical aid is disguised as aid pursuing horizontal objectives. Controlling for the potential endogeneity of state aid policy, the results indicate that vertical state aid contributes positively to MFP growth.Industrial policy; vertical support; multifactor productivity

Telecommunications policies: Measurement and determinants

This paper presents new data on telecommunications reform for a cross section of countries. We measure telecommunications reform along two dimensions: entry barriers and regulatory independence. This data set is combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze the determinants of telecommunications policies. We find that entry barriers are positively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist legal tradition, but they are unrelated to the partisan ideology of reforming governments. We also find that countries with weak protection of investors' quasi-rents by other means, and countries with a larger incumbent are more prone to create independent regulatory agencies, although this last result is statistically weaker.Telecommunications policies; Liberalization; Regulation;

Telecommunications policies: Determinants and impact

This paper presents new data, in the form of four indices, on liberalization policies and the independence of regulators for a cross-section of countries. These indices are combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze both the determinants and the impact of telecommunications policies. The authors find that liberalization policies are negatively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist tradition, but not with the partisan ideology of reforming countries per se. They also find that countries where the institutional endowment constrains less the behavior of the executive bodies, and countries with a stronger incumbent, are more prone to create truly independent regulatory agencies. There is weak evidence that the creation of independent regulatory agencies has a positive effect on network penetration when the endogeneity of regulatory independence is taken into account.telecommunications; liberalization; institutions;