We at Fideres are happy to see the European Commission publish “Exploring Aspect of the State of Competition in the EU”.   This overarching report is the product of our work alongside colleagues at Lear, UEA/CCP, E.CA, DIW, Prometeia and Verian, and sits alongside a parallel report by the OECD.

The overarching report provides original evidence of the multifaceted benefits of effective competition, which has been shown to deliver improved outcomes for customers, to boost the competitiveness of domestic companies in international markets and, more generally, to contribute to economic growth and societal well-being. However, the report also identifies worrying signs that competition has weakened across markets in the EU.

In particular the Fideres-CCP Report on Price-Concentration Analysis provides both quantitative and qualitative evidence of the link between higher concentration and higher prices in six sectors: airlines, beer, cement, mobile telecom, modern consumer retail and mortgages. For mobile telecom and airline pricing, we performed detailed empirical analyses confirming a causal link between prices and concentration. We also found higher concentration associated with lower investment, based on the example of mobile telephony.

Our findings, alongside those of the wider project, speak to the vital importance of protecting competition to build an economy that works for everyone

Read the report here, the EC report here, and watch the conference here.

For more information on Fideres’s work to protect competition in Europe and the US, see here.