Agenda Archive

Energy scarcity: arrivederci?

January 2017

Italy is expected to introduce a capacity market, given its increasing risk of retirement of flexible generation capacity and a consequent reduction in security of supply. Simona Benedettini, Regulatory and Competition Specialist, and Giordano Colarullo, General Manager, both at Utilitalia, the Italian utilities federation, look at the Italian electricity capacity mechanism and whether capacity markets are compatible with the European single market

The future of merger control: hard Brexit, difficult questions?

January 2017

The UK’s withdrawal from the EU raises complex issues of policy in many areas of public life. Merger review is no exception, with both EU and UK merger policy being affected. How should the UK’s competition authorities respond to increased demands on their resources in the short-to-medium term? What would be the long-term consequences of applying non-competition considerations in merger review?

To be fair: what does economic justice look like?

January 2017

What is meant by economic (or distributive) justice has far-reaching implications for economic policies and their outcomes. However, in policymaking the interpretation is often implicit, with limited awareness and discussion of alternative concepts or their merits and drawbacks. What are these key concepts of economic justice, and what is their role in competition policy, regulation and regional state aid?

How systemically important are insurers? Empirical evidence and policy implications

January 2017

Due to concerns about insurance companies posing systemic risk during financial crises, some of the largest global insurers have been classified as systemically important, alongside the banking sector, and are subject to additional prudential regulation. But how systemically important are they, and what is the appropriate regulatory approach? Professor Dr Christoph Kaserer, Technische Universität München and Oxera Associate, and Christian Klein, Technische Universität München, have explored these issues and identified important policy implications for the insurance sector