CALL FOR PAPERS Time Series and Competition Policy - Stellenbosch, 4-5 March 2012

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

CALL FOR PAPERS
Time Series and Competition Policy
Stellenbosch, 4-5 March 2012

Time-series tools are often employed in competition law investigations to detect collusion, estimate damages and study post-merger market outcomes. Time-series data (including panel data) are also often employed in empirical industrial organisation (IO) models to estimate demand function and simulate mergers, as well as to delineate markets. To advance research in each of these subfields and to contribute to greater integration of the various fields, Stellenbosch University is organising a workshop on 4-5 March 2013. The workshop, funded by Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA), will offer researchers across South Africa and beyond to build networks and present current research involving time-series applications to competition policy problems. The workshop coincides with a visit by Prof Daniel Rubinfeld to Stellenbosch University. Prof Rubinfeld is the Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law and Professor of Economics Emeritus at University of California (Berkeley) and Professor of Law at New York University. He is a distinguished academic, with wide-ranging scholarly work in applied microeconomics, econometrics, public policy, and industrial organization. His publication list includes seven books, over seventy articles in leading scholarly journals, and more than forty articles in books. Prof Rubinfeld is actively involved in competition policy practice; he was deputy assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice and acted as expert consultant in landmark US competition cases. He has held a number of visiting professorships at leading American and European universities. Target audience and workshop structure The intended target audience are researchers, academics and graduate students in the fields of IO and competition policy as well as competition policy practitioners.

The workshop will consist of:

• The keynote lecture by Prof Rubinfeld.
• Paper sessions on market definition, cartel detection/damages estimation and post-merger evaluation, including presentations by Prof Kai Hüschelrath (Mannheim) and Prof Elena Argentesi (Bologna).
• ‘Paper development’ sessions (where participants can obtain inputs on initial research ideas).

Financial support ERSA covers the travel and accommodation expenses for a limited number of participants from South African institutions. Places are limited and funding to attend the workshop is entirely at the discretion of the workshop organizers. Financial support for private-sector participants is conditional on their active participation and once again at the discretion of the workshop organizers. Submissions Send abstracts of 200 words for consideration to Ms Yoemna Mosaval, yoemna.mosaval@econrsa.org, by 14 January 2013. Academics and especially graduate students intending to participate in the paper development sessions must indicate this in their submission e-mail, and also include an abstract. Successful applicants will be informed towards the end of January.