The IV Meeting of the Association of Competition Economics (ACE) in Spain took place on 10 November at the headquarters of the Rafael del Pino Foundation in Madrid. The meeting addressed various issues on behavioural economics, vertical restraints and competition policy and state aid to the banking sector. The opening session was led by the director of the Rafael del Pino Foundation, Amadeo Petitbò, and Xavier Vives, director of the Public-Private Sector Centre of the IESE Business School.
The first session of the meeting focused on behavioural economics. Jordi Brandts, professor of the Serra Ramoneda Chair at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, described behavioural economics as "a stream of economic analysis that uses research results on social, cognitive and emotional factors to better understand the economic decisions of consumers, savers, investors...". Eliana Garcés, member of the Cabinet of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Consumer Affairs, stated that "If there is rivalry between suppliers in the market, the market outcome is optimal for consumers". Juan Delgado, Chief Economist of the National Competition Commission, presented the paper "Behavioural economics and antitrust". The subsequent discussion was moderated by Elena Zoido, Director of LECG.
The second session looked at Vertical Restraints. It discussed the main issues raised by the draft reform of the Regulation and the European Commission's Guidelines on Vertical Agreements, which include, among others, the treatment of fixed or minimum sales prices, the market share threshold, parallel trade, restrictions on e-commerce, etc. Eric Gippini, member of the Legal Service of the European Commission, spoke about the renewal of the Vertical Restraints Regulation. Joaquín López Vallés, Deputy Assistant Director of the Research Directorate of the Industry and Energy Sub-Directorate of the National Competition Commission, went into the content of the Regulation, saying that it "only delimits what is exempt (it does not presume the illegality of what is not exempt), but emphasises the importance of the "safe harbour". Massimo Mota, professor at the Pompeu Fabra University and the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, presented a paper entitled "Vertical restrictions in the European Union". Natalia Fabra, Professor of Economics at the Carlos III University, moderated the subsequent debate.
The last session of the meeting, entitled "Competition policy and state aid in the banking sector", was opened by Juan Espinosa, Deputy Director of Relations with Public Administrations of the Directorate for the Promotion of Competition, who analysed the implications, from the point of view of competition, of the bank restructuring carried out by the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB). Georges Siotis, Professor of Economics at the Carlos III University and economist at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition, spoke about the control of state aid by EU member states in the banking crisis of the last two years. Xavier Vives, Director of the Public-Private Sector Centre at IESE Business School, closed the round of presentations with "Competition and Stability in Banking. A New World for Competition Policy? The colloquium that closed this IV Meeting of the Association of Competition Economics was moderated by Santiago Carbó, Professor of Economics in the Department of Economic Theory and History at the University of Granada.
