Authors
Shastitko A.
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Degree
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PhD in Economics, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University |
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E-mail
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shastitkoanastasia@gmail.com |
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Location
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Moscow |
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Articles
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Price Parallelism on Mobile Communication Markets: Three InterpretationsPrice parallelism in itself is not a violation of antitrust law. However, in the mobile communication
market, it is complemented by features of product characteristics and industry regulation in such
a way that, as a result, it often attracts the attention of antitrust authorities as a sign of concerted
actions (or agreements) restricting competition. The article shows that the existing norms in the law
that describe the criteria for classifying concerted actions are based on economic models that often
do not take into account some real features of the market and of the sellers and buyers. As a result,
the same observable practices may have alternative interpretations that do not imply any kind
of coordination between market participants. The article offers three such alternative interpretations:
through the discrepancy between the expected and actual volume of service consumption,
from the standpoint of the «new theory of consumer demand» and from the behavioral economics
standpoint. To make a decision about the existence of a violation, these hypotheses concerning the
causes of parallel behavior must be disproved with a sufficient degree of accuracy, otherwise there
is a high risk of law enforcement errors.
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Price discrimination: economic theory and law enforcement practiceThe article concerns price discrimination, in particular, the way price discrimination practice is regulated
in Russia. The analysis is based on the economic theory of price discrimination and the law
enforcement practice of the corresponding legal norms in the US and Europe. The main goal of this
article is to reveal possible weaknesses in the legal framework of the price discrimination practice
in Russia. The analysis was motivated by a number of cases on price discrimination opened by the
Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia, and in particular, the case about the difference in the price
of mobile communication services within the «home region» and «in roaming». The results of the
analysis are the following. First, legal uncertainty in the area of price discrimination was identified.
Second, it was shown that the use of the per se approach to the practice of price discrimination
in Russia leads to the welfare loss. Third, it was also shown that the norms on price discrimination in
Russia might be insufficient to control negative effects of some types of price discrimination, in particular
in cases where price discrimination does not require a company to have dominant position
in the market.
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The problem of the geographic market delineation: the revival of the Elzinga-Hogarty testThe article concerns the problem of the geographic market delineation. Market definition is subject
to a serious criticism, especially in the case of differentiated products, however, it remains an
important element of economic analysis in the Russian antitrust law enforcement. The hypothetical
monopolist test is the main approach to the market definition, because it captures well the idea
behind the market definition. However, the data required for implementing the hypothetical monopolist
test in a way that would give reliable results, is not always available. In this situation alternative
approaches to the market definition might be used. This article analyses the Elzinga-Hogarty test,
which in combination with a list of price tests might become a useful tool of economic analysis. Its
main advantage is that it does not require a lot of data, and its results do not become completely
corrupt in the case when some data is missing. The main take away of this article is that in the situation
when resources available for an antitrust investigation are limited, and data, which is required
to implement the hypothetical monopolist test of necessary quality, is not available, the Elzinga-
Hogarty test might become an alternative to the hypothetical monopolist test and be used to define
geographic markets. The logic of the test, its limitations and additional evidence, which should be
used to make the conclusions reliable, are discussed in this article.
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