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Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a part of our daily lives at a fast pace, offering myriad benefits for society. At the same time, there is concern about the unpredictability and uncontrollability of AI. In response, legislators and scholars call for more transparency and explainability of AI. This article considers what it would mean to require transparency of AI. It advocates looking beyond the opaque concept of AI, focusing on the concrete risks and biases of its underlying technology: machine-learning algorithms. The article discusses the biases that algorithms may produce through the input data, the testing of the algorithm and the decision model. Any transparency requirement for algorithms should result in explanations of these biases that are both understandable for the prospective recipients, and technically feasible for producers. Before asking how much transparency the law should require from algorithms, we should therefore consider if the explanation that programmers could offer is useful in specific legal contexts.

During the last years, the European Union has faced the questions of its legitimacy, its role and its future more fiercely than ever since the European project was initiated. One of the key questions is when it is desirable and necessary to introduce new European rules. This thesis offers an answer to this question from a Law and Economics perspective in the area of EU private law, focusing on consumer contract law and antitrust damages actions. The thesis relies on the framework provided by the economic theory of federalism, which postulates that centralising a policy needs to be justified by a particular benefit, to compensate for the lower correspondence to local preferences and lost possibilities for regulatory experimentation. Against this theoretic background, the thesis advocates that the subsidiarity principle, which governs the exercise of competences by the EU institutions, ought to be an efficiency principle that weighs the various economic arguments in favour and against harmonisation. The thesis extends the framework of the economics of federalism in several ways. First, the thesis explores the link between the economics of federalism and the economics of integration. It is found that there are hardly any limits to the possibilities to harmonise rules for completing the internal market if one follows the logic of the economic concept of market integration, which also underlies the internal market's legislative competence of the EU. Almost any variation in Member States' legal rules could be considered as an obstacle to the internal market. An overarching economic theory of harmonisation needs to take account not only of reductions in transaction costs and other trade barriers, but also of broader welfare effects. By incorporating heterogeneous preferences into a trade model, the thesis illustrates that harmonising rules involves a trade-off between enhancing competition by reducing transaction costs, and ensuring that policies correspond to citizens' preferences. Further extensions of the economics of federalism framework are identified in the scope and enforcement of EU legislation. The limited scope of the Antitrust Damages Directive in terms of its rules on limitation periods may limit the extent to which the Directive can achieve its goal of providing a level playing field' for antitrust damages claims throughout the EU. The second goal of this Directive, to balance public and private antitrust enforcement, may require an adjustment to some of the substantive rules on liability, in order to prevent that damages claims undermine the success of the leniency program. Building upon the insights from the economics of federalism, the thesis aims to show that the effects of harmonisation lie not only in a reduction of transaction costs, but also in the substantial rules included in the EU policy, their scope of application, and their enforcement. The implication for policy making is that the justification for further harmonisation should go beyond the limited focus on the beneficial effects on the internal market, to include a wider range of welfare considerations.

With the growing economic and societal importance of online platforms, the question of their liability for illegal content or products they host becomes more important. Based on an analysis of platform's incentives, we address the appropriate liability rule for hosting service providers and derive policy recommendations for an efficient liability regime in the European Union. Online hosting platforms may take monitoring efforts on their own initiative that are suboptimal due to the presence of externalities and asymmetric information problems, warranting some form of liability rules. However, for more fundamental reasons of free speech and preventing censorship, policy makers may want to be cautious in entrusting – and burdening – private parties which such an extensive 'policing" role. Additionally, higher monitoring requirements may disproportionally burden small entrants. As we argue, since several actors participate to the diffusion of illegal material online, the responsibility of a safe Internet should be shared among all these actors. Concrete regulatory improvements may encourage online hosting platforms to do their part in monitoring proactively and diligently, such as affirming a good Samaritan clause.

In its Proposal for a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, the European Commission included a new neighbouring right for press publishers with regard to the digital use of their publications "to ensure quality journalism and citizens' access to information." (European Commission, 14 September 2016, Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, Doc. COM(2016) 593 final, Art. 11(1) and Recital 31.) Undoubtedly, a free and pluralist press is one of the cornerstones of democratic societies. The question is, however, whether this goal can be achieved by adopting an additional layer of protection. From an economic perspective, it seems essential that publishers, including press publishers, develop new business models in the digital environment. To ensure the survival of quality journalism, it is of utmost importance to support the transition to new business models that has already started in the publishing sector. Hence, the question arises whether the proposal of a new neighbouring right is a legislative initiative that makes sense against this background. To answer this question, the following inquiry will first provide an economic analysis of new business models in the publishing industry. On this basis, it becomes possible to assess the proposal of a new neighbouring right in the light of the need to develop new business models that are sustainable in the digital environment. The analysis will show that the introduction of a new neighbouring right is unlikely to offer support in this respect. Instead, it may even impede or delay necessary modernization steps.