Volume 60, Issue 2

The uncontrolled centralization of competences on the European level is problematic insofar as it does not correspond to the citizens’ preferences. Constitutional constraints can prove essential for the freedom and the welfare of EU citizens. Existing constraints like the subsidiarity principle, the Council’s qualified-majority voting threshold, the checks and balances between different institutions, and the constitutional courts are not sufficient. Sunset competences, opting-out rights of the Member States, and the introduction of „Functional, Overlapping, and Competing Jurisdictions“ could strengthen institutional competition within the EU in order to shape the Union’s and Member States’ policies more according to citizens’ preferences.

Our aim is to review the concept of social capital and to examine its genesis and effects empirically. Contrary to other authors, we analyze structural and cultural components as well. An extensive investigation of social capital in Germany shows, that not only personal factors but also cultural, social and economic aspects are relevant for its spread and extent. Since they exert a distinct influence, the effects are also different for economic growth, mobility, satisfaction and health. Due to the fact, that social capital is a multilayer concept, there is no single component that can be seen as a proxy as literature widely does. It thus requires a more comprehensive analysis.

The main internet problem is how to deal with temporary overload, which negatively affects quality-sensitive high value services while others do not suffer. Capacity overprovisioning als well as volume tariffs will not be efficient. The optimal solution is the application of priority pricing, where higher prices are paid for higher qualities. This is economically superior to network management as well as to strict net neutrality.

In principle, all data on the Internet have so far been transmitted on the basis of best-effort, i.e. equally and without change, regardless of content, service, application, origin or destination. Quality of Service (QoS) has not been excluded, but has instead generally been limited to the access network of the Internet Service Provider (access-ISP) (IPTV, VoIP etc.). Now, the ISPs plan to offer such a QoS on the Internet as well by means of various prioritised transport groups. These QoS transport groups are not supposed to displace, but rather to complement the best effort area (QoS and best effort). Hereby the ISP first expect to participate more in the added value of the Internet. Secondly, the problems caused by the bottleneck for timecritical services and other forms of QoS (IPTV, VoIP, gaming etc.) are to be eliminated. Thirdly, various transport groups and various groups of products (IPTV, VOD, interactive services such as gaming etc.) characterised by specific technical features of performance and features of quality are to be composed and marketed by the ISP to the content provider, to the service provider and to the consumer. In order to guarantee such QoS on the Internet, the ISP have to agree on cross-network technical standards for QoS. Both the European Commission and the German legislator, being competent for transposing the EU directives on telecommunications into national law, take a careful approach to the issue of network neutrality. For the case that ISP limit the access or the use of services the directives provide for transparency rules aimed at guaranteeing the comsumer’s freedom of choice. Beyond that, minimum requirements for the quality of service can be set in order to prevent impairment of services and hindrance or slowdown of data traffic in the nets. Hereby consumers are protected comprehensively. As it stands more regulation is not necessary. The risk of discrimination coming from vertical integration can be addressed by means of sector-specific regulatory law (cf. § 42 German Telecommunications Act - TKG) and by means of general competition law (cf. §§ 19, 20 Act Against Restraints of Competition - GWB, Article 102 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - AEUV). The composition of the various QoS transport groups and marketing to the content provider, to the service provider and to the consumer do not as such give rise to a need for regulation. In fact, the formation of (cross-network) QoS transport groups constitutes a pre-condition for consumers booking such QoS on the Internet. However, all content providers and service providers seeking access to QoS transport groups must have such access according to non-discriminatory terms. Such non-discriminatory access can be adequately guaranteed by sector-specific regulatory law and general competition law. At present, subject to the condition of there being a robust and dynamically developing best effort area in addition to QoS transport groups, more regulation is not necessary. However, it cannot be predicted whether the different QoS transport groups will emerge or not. Regulation „at random“ is as pointless as „symbolic regulation“.

The Internet is characterized by competition between platforms which bring together potential partners of exchange. The degree of competition between these multi-sided platforms und market concentration are determined through (1) the strength of the direct and indirect network effects, (2) the extent of economies of scale, (3) the risk of congestition, (4) platform differentiation, and (5) the possibility of multi-homing. Depending on these factors different market concentrations and barriers to entry result. While there is no general tendency for concentration in the Internet and no general need for special market regulation of online content providers and intermediaries, single platforms may still have long lasting and significant market power which is unlikely to erode fastly, as the example of ebay illustrates.

We analyze the law regarding the adequacy of executive directors’ compensation in Germany. First we provide an overview of the law’s contents clustered in four different fields. We also introduce economic theories to analyze the principal-agent relationship with one principal (shareholders) and two agents (supervisory board, board of directors) as well as the D & O insurance in the context of two contradicting theories. We debate whether regulation can be viewed as justified and go into detail analyzing each new aspect of the law and possible economic consequences on the compensation level. We also provide a short overview and discuss the implication of the law by German firms.

This paper studies competition in the German market for mobile telecommunications, motivated by recent suggestions that T-Mobile and Vodafone possess a position of collective dominance. Allegedly, their position of joint dominance is secured through a combination of first-mover advantages and discrimination between on-net and off-net prices. While our qualitative analysis remains inconclusive, as some factors tend to favour collusion while others make collusion more difficult to sustain, our empirical analysis suggests that T-Mobile and Vodafone cannot act independently of their smaller rivals, but that they are disciplined by their smaller competitors’ offerings