Competition Policy under transition - a study of merger regulation in Poland
(2009)Department of Economics
- Abstract
- This thesis discusses the design and implementation of competition policy in Poland. The aim is both to analyze weather the design of competition policy in Poland corresponds to their special needs as a transition economy, and if there is a trade-off between competition policy and industry policy in Polish merger control. After the collapse of communism, the transition to a market economy required that Poland made profound changes in the economy and legal system in order to develop competitive markets domestically. With an aspiration to become a member of the EU, Poland also had to deal with competition from abroad. The EU-15 feared that the new member states would use anti-competitive behaviour to support domestic industries and extensive... (More)
- This thesis discusses the design and implementation of competition policy in Poland. The aim is both to analyze weather the design of competition policy in Poland corresponds to their special needs as a transition economy, and if there is a trade-off between competition policy and industry policy in Polish merger control. After the collapse of communism, the transition to a market economy required that Poland made profound changes in the economy and legal system in order to develop competitive markets domestically. With an aspiration to become a member of the EU, Poland also had to deal with competition from abroad. The EU-15 feared that the new member states would use anti-competitive behaviour to support domestic industries and extensive negotiations were held on competition policy within the Europe Agreements in order to harmonize the law to that of the EU. One finding in this thesis is that the aim of the competition policy at a national level in Poland initially could have been better adjusted to the needs of consumers. Further, the harmonization with EU law was not ideal to even out the distortion in allocation across industries. However, valuable gains from using EU expertise in institution building and experience in case law made the process of trial and error shorter. Another main finding is that the Polish competition authority has not a bias towards clearing mergers that are harmful to competition in order to create national champions, neither in the comparison to other Central European countries or in the assessment of the arguments stated in the decisions. However, a serious problem for implementation is the lengthy appeal system, which has to be improved to avoid financial penalties’ evasion. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1338056
- author
- Dixon, Amelia
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2009
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- EU, Poland, mergers, competition policy, transition economies, Economics, econometrics, economic theory, economic systems, economic policy, Nationalekonomi, ekonometri, ekonomisk teori, ekonomiska system, ekonomisk politik
- language
- English
- id
- 1338056
- date added to LUP
- 2009-01-17 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2010-08-03 10:52:02
@misc{1338056,
abstract = {{This thesis discusses the design and implementation of competition policy in Poland. The aim is both to analyze weather the design of competition policy in Poland corresponds to their special needs as a transition economy, and if there is a trade-off between competition policy and industry policy in Polish merger control. After the collapse of communism, the transition to a market economy required that Poland made profound changes in the economy and legal system in order to develop competitive markets domestically. With an aspiration to become a member of the EU, Poland also had to deal with competition from abroad. The EU-15 feared that the new member states would use anti-competitive behaviour to support domestic industries and extensive negotiations were held on competition policy within the Europe Agreements in order to harmonize the law to that of the EU. One finding in this thesis is that the aim of the competition policy at a national level in Poland initially could have been better adjusted to the needs of consumers. Further, the harmonization with EU law was not ideal to even out the distortion in allocation across industries. However, valuable gains from using EU expertise in institution building and experience in case law made the process of trial and error shorter. Another main finding is that the Polish competition authority has not a bias towards clearing mergers that are harmful to competition in order to create national champions, neither in the comparison to other Central European countries or in the assessment of the arguments stated in the decisions. However, a serious problem for implementation is the lengthy appeal system, which has to be improved to avoid financial penalties’ evasion.}},
author = {{Dixon, Amelia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Competition Policy under transition - a study of merger regulation in Poland}},
year = {{2009}},
}