AFM-chair on Financial Market Regulation

In 2005, the AFM (the Dutch Regulator for Financial Markets), after competition, selected TILEC to host a special chair focussing on financial market regulation. The University matched the AFM-money so that, in fact, two chairs could be established. Earlier this year, Hans Degryse was appointed as chairholder in economics, while, on September 1, Joe McCahery and Erik Vermeulen were appointed on the chair in Law, see press release (in Dutch). Joe and Erik will organize a conference on hedgefunds later this year.

TILEC at the 23rd Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics

Last 14-16 September in Madrid, the 23rd Annual conference of the European Association of Law and Economics took place. The event offered several members and Ph.D. students of TILEC an opportunity to present their recent work. In addition, the meeting offered the opportunity to make contact again with several colleague researchers that had been visiting TILEC in the past. Four current or former TILEC members presented their papers and served as discussants: Filomena Chirico, Restrictions of competition in Internet Governance. Jun Zhou, In Litigation: How Far Do The “Haves” Come Out Ahead? A Game Theoretical Study. Andrei Medvedev (with Bruce Lyons), Bargaining Over Remedies in Merger Regulation. Evgenia Motchenkova (with Rob van der Laan), Strictness of Leniency Programs and Cartels of Asymmetric Firms. One more TILEC member, Sofia Johan, co-authored the paper presented by D. Cumming: Regulatory Harmonization and the Development of Private Equity Markets. The conference programme, organized in various Panels, covered many research fields, among which: Competition Policy and Regulation, Tort and Crime, Contracts and Property, Corporate Law, Bankruptcy and financial Regulation, Legal rule making. Two plenary sessions were dedicated to discussing: “Private Enforcement of Antitrust Law in Europe” (invited speaker: Jurgen Basedow, Max-Planck Institute, Hamburg) and "Past Behaviour and the Desirable Modification of the Law” (invited speaker: Steven Shavell, Harvard Law School).

Recent Research: Network Neutrality

TILEC has published a report Network neutrality and the nature of competition between network operators written by Paul de Bijl and Viktória Kocsis on request of DGET of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The paper deals with the problem that the neutral architecture of the Internet is being challenged by various parties, such as network operators providing the connections to end-users, who are strongly interested in gaining control of the information exchanged over the Internet. The paper analyses what are the effects on competition and welfare of such practices. Currently, there exists very little economic theory on network neutrality, and the paper provides a preliminary analysis of the type of economic modelling that can address network neutrality, as well as of the type of results that can be expected. In terms of policy recommendations, the paper suggests that laissez-faire might be risky because of the potential welfare loss of tactics that undermine network neutrality. To minimize the risk of regulatory failure, imposing minimal obligations on network operators, rather than imposing detailed regulations, may be a no-regret option for policy. The paper suggests that economists take a closer look at this type of option.

Ting Jiang wins Mozaiek grant of NWO

Ting Jiang a junior member of TILEC has won a NWO-Mozaiek grant which will allow her to do a Ph.D.-project at TILEC. Mozaiek is a subsidy program that aims to get more members from minority groups into scientific careers. Ting is one of the 23 winners (across all fields of science) from the 121 applicants that applied in this year's round. Ting's proposal on combating corruption by leniency schemes was supervised by Jan Boone and Eric van Damme.

Hiil Grant for Pierre Larouche and co-workers

Pierre Larouche, Filomena Chirico and Saskia Lavrijssen have been awarded a grant of 211 600 Euros by the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL) for the project "Coping with the challenges of globalization". The aim of the project is to analyse from a legal, economic and political perspective how national legal systems can cope with the pressures of globalization. The project uses an interdisciplinary approach to analyse how national legal systems can cope with the pressures of globalization. The project is divided in two sub-projects. The first one deals from an economic and legal perspective with the convergence and divergence of legal systems. Its research questions are: In the light of globalization, why is there convergence or divergence of legal systems and how can it be identified and measured? When and how should divergence be corrected, if at all? The second research question touches upon the evolution of fundamental principles in the light of globalization and new modes of governance for the regulation of economic and social behaviour. Its research question is if and how the fundamental democratic principles of the rule of law and accountability are translated in new forms of governance. The project will start in 2007 and the expected output will be scientific articles for legal and economic international journals and a monograph which will contain a collection of the results of the project.

Bert Willems appointed on position sponsored by Essent

Essent, a Dutch energy company is sponsoring TILEC research on energy issues. Part of the money is used to conduct Blue Sky Research, whereas another part is devoted to research with a more applied nature. The latter is presented, and influenced by discussions, at Round Tables that TILEC organizes. In previous years, Gert Brunenkreeft held the position sponsored by Essent. Now that Gert has been appointed as professor in Bremen, the position is held by Bert Willems, an engineer and industrial economist from Leuven, who has also been affiliated with the California Energy Institute; see the Press release (in Dutch).

TILEC Newsletter

This is the first issue of the monthly newsletter of TILEC, the Tilburg Law and Economics Center. We at TILEC are delighted to inform you about the latest TILEC events and about the research results that have been obtained by the TILEC members. In case, you do not want to receive further issues, simply unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the bottom of this mail. We also apologise in case you receive this mail more than once. TILEC was established in September 2002. After a positive Peer Review Evaluation last year, the parent faculties and the Executive Board of Tilburg University decided to further invest in TILEC. TILEC has set up a Research Program on Market Governance, which comprises two research lines: (i) Market Design, Competition, Regulation and Innovation, and (ii) Corporate Governance and Financial Market Regulation. As TILEC has now matured, we feel ready to send you our newsletter.