Grant number: PID2021-129101NB-I00

Business firms, consumers and the European Union itself would greatly benefit from the Europeanisation of national competition policies. But, to what extent has the expected diffusion of the European model taken place? What are the reasons for the observed transverse and longitudinal variation? We assume that, apart from the common explanations already considered in the literature (variations in the political regime, the type of political economy and the 'veto players', the type of association with the EU, and the economic situation), take into account the role of electoral systems and ever-evolving national legal constraints should help increase our understanding of such phenomena. We also highlight the fact that the EU's competition policy itself is not fixed in time and therefore Europeanisation is a moving target. Our project proposes to collect precise and detailed information on the evolution of competition policy in the EU and of 17 competition policies of very different countries from 1994 to the present (EU + Germany, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Peru, United Kingdom, Tunisia, and Turkey, and controlling for the evolution of US policy and OECD recommendations). For each year, we will calculate the distance between each national policy and EU policy in the four main areas of competition law (horizontal agreements, vertical agreements, abuse of dominance, and mergers). We will test our hypotheses using pooled time series, regression analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and qualitative case studies. Our project has a great potential for innovation, both at the level of descriptive inference (quantitative and qualitative) and at the level of causal inference. It will certainly also have an impact beyond academic circles.

Research Clusters related to the project

• Diversity and Politics
• Globalization and Public Policy