Defending Competition and Promoting Sustainable Development: Possibilities for Harmonization

In: Moscow University Economics Bulletin, Band 2016, Heft 2, S. 45-70

Abstract

The compatibility between the priorities of industrial policy, aimed at promoting sustainable development, and competition defense by means of antitrust law remains a question open for discussion. The paper demonstrates that it is the institutional environment that defines which characteristics of ecological externalities influence the possibility of accounting for these externalities by market players and regulators in the specific case of cooperation agreements between competitors. It is shown that positive externalities having the characteristics of public goods may be taken into account only in a limited way, which can lead to type I errors by antitrust authorities when determining the legality of horizontal agreements.