ELS lab meeting - Work in Progress by jasper Sluijs
- Date
- Monday 15 April 2024
- Time
- Location
- Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw (KOG)
- Room
- B0.13
Our first ELS lab meeting of this cycle will be a Work in Progress by Jasper Sluijs (UU) and Florian Heine (VU). In this work in progress meeting, Jasper Sluijs would like to discuss how to effectively and objectively communicate these findings in a polarized academic debate.
State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are increasingly being positioned by EU policymakers as drivers for meeting sustainability transitions, particularly in large industrial policy initiatives such as the European Green Deal. This has led, for instance, to increased state aid to SOEs and (re)nationalization initiatives. While the potential of state ownership towards sustainability goals seems promising, increased reliance on SOEs can create or strengthen their dominance on markets. By means of a lab experiment we simulated a market environment to investigate if an SOE as compared to a private firm is more likely to abuse its dominance—which is unlawful under EU competition law. Findings indicate that SOEs are overall less likely to abuse their dominance compared to private firms, but when they engage in abuse this is more severe.