The 16th ASCOLA conference, a Panel on ‘Career Challenges: How to make and maintain an academic career (not just as a woman)’, virtual, 1–3 July 2021

Abstract

It has been another difficult year affected by the pandemic outbreak. This meant that for the second time the ASCOLA (Academic Society for Competition Law) Annual Conference had to be held virtually. ASCOLA brings together numerous researchers and scholars from all continents with an interest in antitrust law, economics and policy. The 16th ASCOLA Conference, held virtually on 1–3 July 2021, led by the ASCOLA Executive Board, Michal Gal, Rupprecht Podszun and Peter Picht (plus their respective teams), had over 120 talks from inspiring speakers from all over the world. The main theme of the conference was Competition and Innovation in Digital Markets, with the focus on the application of competition laws (covering both developed and developing countries) in digital markets ensuring competition and/or innovation. Given that digital markets encompass platform-based business models, multi-sided markets, network effects and economies of scale and scope as well as other phenomena, they pose more complex competition issues. Therefore, the discussions also centred on the extent to which ex-ante regulatory tools should be introduced to promote competition in digital markets (namely the EU’s current proposals for the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act). Any competition law related matters will not be conclusive without the input of economists. Specifically, the keynote speech was presented by the economics Professor Carl Shapiro (‘Antitrust: What went Wrong and How to Fix it’); moreover, an Economic expert Panel took place, consisting of two panellists – the renowned innovation economists Richard Gilbert (Berkeley) and Monika Schnitzer (Ludwig Maximilians University), the panel was moderated by Tommaso Valletti (Imperial College, London, and former chief economist of the EU Commission’s DG Competition).