ABSTRACT - This study analyses the main barriers to effective competition in the provision of mortgage credit. The study considers and discusses barriers affecting both the supply (distance, information sharing, cross-selling practices, linkages between mortgage lenders and other market players) and the demand (switching and search costs) side of the market. Based on the available evidence it provides an assessment of the extent to which such barriers restrict competition in the mortgage market. 

ABSTRACT -  This paper investigates the role of incumbents’ market power in shaping the entry decisions of Italian banks after branching liberalization in 1990. Using a unique dataset on 260 banks, we find that entry over the 1990-1995 period was targeted towards markets that were more competitive to begin with, i.e. where banking spreads were smaller. The results confirm the entry deterrent role of market power in the short-run and show a long run effect of regulation that survives after the removal of administrative barriers. The capacity of market power to discourage entry is confirmed in instrumental variables specifications, where we use the characteristics of the local banking markets in 1936, a proxy for tightness of banking regulation, to identify an exogenous source of variation in the spreads.

Ciari L, De Bonis R, Entry Decisions After Deregulation: the Role of Incumbents’; Market Power, MoFiR wp n°50

ABSTRACT - This article describes in detail a set of newly developed indicators of the quality of competition policy, the Competition Policy Indexes (CPIs). The CPIs measure the deterrence properties of a jurisdiction\'s competition policy—where by competition policy, we mean the antitrust legislation including the merger control provisions and its enforcement. The CPIs incorporate data on how the key features of a competition policy regime (particularly information on the legal framework, the institutional settings, and the enforcement tools of each jurisdiction that we examine) score against a benchmark of generally agreed-upon best practices and summarize them, so as to allow cross-country and cross-time comparisons. We calculate the CPIs for a sample of 13 OECD jurisdictions over the period from 1995 to 2005.

ABSTRACT - This paper examines the optimal sanction for rules that are imperfect in that they are either overinclusive, as they prohibit an action that in some circumstances is beneficial, or underinclusive as they allow agents to undertake alternative conducts that are harmful, or both. The paper clarifies why this notion of imperfection divers from the notion of over- and underdeterrence and from that of legal errors. Finally it shows that when rules are imperfect the optimal sanction is lower than the optimal sanction for a perfect rule, both if the rule is overinclusive and if it is underinclusive.

ABSTRACT - In order to make better use of economic tools in assessing damages resulting from exclusionary conduct there needs to be greater consideration of the ‘theory of harm’, which sharpens the understanding of how and why a rival\'s profitability has been damaged. This article argues for the necessity of ensuring a complete theory of harm and suggests practical ways in which this can be arrived at when some, or all, of the information is missing.