Three Essays in Law and Economics

This book lies at the intersection of competition law, the economics of litigation, and digital regulation. It examines, from multiple perspectives, the legal and economic responses to unilateral conduct by dominant firms capable of causing competitive harm. By focusing on the mechanisms of compensation, prevention, and remediation, the study adopts a rigorously empirical and analytical approach to the enforcement of competition rules. Composed of three essays, the research combines methods drawn from data analysis, econometrics, and game theory to shed light on firms' incentives and on the effectiveness of contemporary competition law instruments : The first essay investigates the determinants of success in damages actions following abuses of dominance, relying on an original dataset of 194 cases. The second essay analyzes the potential effects of the prohibition of anti-steering clauses introduced by the Digital Markets Act on market participants' incentives and behavior. The third essay builds on a commitment decision of the European Commission concerning a vertically integrated digital platform to explore the advantages of so-called "black-box" audit techniques applied to ranking algorithms. By articulating economic analysis with legal reasoning, this book contributes to a deeper understanding of how competition law is enforced in the digital economy and of its capacity to address the challenges posed by dominant platforms. The book was awarded the Concurrences Ph.D. Award in Economics.