Paul K. Gorecki

Trinity College Dublin | TCD · Department of Economics

This paper argues that the current method of determining the availability and pricing of new medicines for public reimbursement in Ireland likely results in too large a share of public healthcare expenditure allocated to medicines. Resources are misallocated. Welfare is lowered. In contrast to some other areas of public healthcare, patients exercis...

This paper addresses, for the taxi market in Ireland, whether judicial, legislative and regulatory processes promote taxi users’ welfare or taxi license holders’ welfare. It is argued that the 2000 decision to remove quantitative restrictions on taxi numbers favoured taxi users; the 2010 decision to re impose such restrictions, with the exception o...

Ireland’s policy-makers were confronted with difficult decisions concerning the financial sector and competition policy during the recent financial crisis. In response, Ireland’s Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Act 2008 (‘CIFS Act 2008’) introduced ad hoc policy changes to the review of mergers deemed necessary for the stability of the Iris...

Patrick Massey raises serious concerns about the quality of analysis in the Irish Competition Authority's merger determinations. One of the five mergers reviewed could have been cleared, others perhaps prohibited. Suggestions are made for improving the merger control process. A careful examination of the concerns put forward by Massey finds that se...

The paper examines the approach used in sentencing in hard core cartel cases in the European Union, Ireland and the United States. These approaches are not considered in a vacuum, but rather use the facts of the successful prosecution of the Citroen cartel in Ireland. While the EU and the US both use sentencing guidelines, the US guidelines are mor...

In 2011, the Irish State spent E1.9bn on pharmaceuticals, amounting to approximately 13% of total public health expenditure. Over the period 2000-2010, Ireland experienced one of the fastest growth rates in per capita pharmaceutical expenditure in the OECD. Concern over pharmaceutical expenditure in Ireland has led to a number of policy changes, ta...

The all-island wholesale electricity market, SEM, has to comply with the Target Model by 2016. SEM has worked well for consumers through mitigating market power, facilitating entry and ensuring adequate generation capacity, problems that will persist. But the SEM is a mandatory pool with central dispatch, the Target Model is a self dispatch with bi...

The small public service vehicle (SPSV) market in Ireland appears to have adjusted well to the changed economic circumstances since the onset of the recession. Despite this, a prohibition has been introduced since June 2010 on new taxi and hackney licences, while a series of measures are being introduced in 2012 and 2013 that are likely to limit th...

Recessions pose something of a dilemma for policymakers with respect to competition policy. Despite compelling evidence that relaxing competition policy during a recession is likely to have quite profound adverse economic consequences in terms of, for example, retarding the subsequent recovery, policymakers may nevertheless relax competition policy...

This paper analyses the conduct of competition policy in Ireland between 2000 and 2011. Attention is paid to the policies and actions of those persons and institutions responsible for competition policy: the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation; the Competition Authority; the Courts; and, since 2010, the European Union and the International...

Hard times, occasioned by a prolonged recession resulting in a series of austerity budgetary measures, generate much economic insecurity. How should the State respond? One clear choice is between robustly enforcing competition and regulatory policy and relaxing these policies. What does the international as well as Irish evidence suggest is the res...

A constant refrain of policy makers and public representatives is the necessity of improving the quality of public health services. In this paper, two inter-related policies designed to raise the quality of pharmacy services in Ireland are considered. The first was to restrict the opening of new pharmacies, the second to increase the quality of pha...

The sale of state assets, both tangible (e.g. commercial firms) and intangible (e.g. radio spectrum), can address budgetary shortfalls. However, drawing on the Irish experience to inform this important issue, it becomes clear that much more is involved in selling state assets in electricity, gas, and transport than ranking such assets by value. Wid...

The market for corporate control plays an important role in ensuring that assets are deployed in an efficient and effective manner. However, on occasion, mergers might lead to a reduction in competition and a consequent rise in prices and/or other anticompetitive effects. Ireland's Competition Act 2002 provides that all mergers that meet certain fi...

The October 2009 Government Statement on Economic Regulation proposes a number of sensible reforms that are likely to improve regulatory performance in energy, airports, telecommunications, postal services and transport. However, the Government Statement also proposes to reduce the independence of regulators by holding them to account through a who...

Climate change is an important problem. It would be desirable to have legislation that would put Ireland on a low-cost and equitable trajectory to a zero-carbon economy. The draft Climate Change Response Bill 2010 will not achieve that. The exact emission reduction targets for 2020 are ambiguous, but considerably more ambitious than Ireland's oblig...

This paper examines how local government planning regulations and charges affect the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure. We explore the economic rationale for local government regulation of such infrastructure, which we suggest should be based on managing negative externalities. Using data from Ireland, we find that the observed geogra...

On 21 December 2009 the Irish High Court found that a proposal to vary existing market regulation (hereinafter referred to as the “Variation”), by the four Dublin local authorities, is a breach of national competition law. In its decision the High Court relied heavily on EU jurisprudence to justify an expansive approach to both the definition of an...

Under European Union proposals for CO2 emission reduction between 2013 and 2020, a Member State can transfer to another Member State the right to use its unused Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits. The paper addresses three issues in relation to these CDM Warrants (CDMW). First, how should the Member State treat the CDMW in making decisions c...

On 21 December 2009 the Irish High Court found that a regulatory proposal, the Variation, by the four Dublin local authorities, is a breach of national competition law. The Variation allows a single operator to collect household waste, irrespective of whether the operator is selected by competitive tender or the local authority reserves the collect...

This report to the Irish Minister for Finance by the Governor of the Central Bank describes the the performance of the respective functions of the Central Bank and Financial Regulator in the period 2003-8 in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of the root causes of the systemic failures that led to the need for extraordinary support from the...

This study analyzes the effects of right-wing extremism on the well-being of immigrants based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1984 to 2006 merged with state-level information on election outcomes. The results show that the life satisfaction of immigrants is significantly reduced if right-wing extremism in the nativ...

Countervailing buyer power was central to the outcome of the competition assessment of the Kerry/Breeo merger. The Irish Competition Authority prohibited the merger of two leading food processors on the grounds that the merged entity would be able to raise prices in the rashers and non-poultry cooked meats markets despite the presence of a small nu...

Contents Introduction Frances Ruane Chapter 1. Tax Reform: Selected Issues Tim Callan, Claire Keane, John R. Walsh 2. The Recession, Budgets, Competition, and Regulation: Should the State Supply Bespoke Protection? Paul K. Gorecki 3. The Future of the EU Budget: Irish Perspectives Alan Matthews

Having reviewed some 311 cases notified to the Irish Competition Authority during 2003-2006 this paper examines economic evidence and how it relates to factual and opinion evidence in testing for SLC. The analysis focuses on the use of economic evidence in the assessment of horizontal mergers with unilateral effects and sets out a framework for the...

The paper applies a form-based and an effects-based approach to determine whether allegations that TicketMaster Ireland's exclusive contracts with the two leading promoters on the island of Ireland resulted in high or excessive prices for the ticketing services provided by TicketMaster Ireland to consumers. The form-based approach strongly supporte...

Mobility statistics are direct measures of the intensity of competition; market-structure indicators, indirect measures. In this regard, the most widely employed measure of market structure is the concentration ratio. Despite the fact that structural measures provide only proxies for the extent of competition, they are widely used by professional e...

British Columbia's Pharmacare and the Ontario Drug Benefit Programme are compared with respect to drug prices, the market share of generic and brand names, and the existence of a difference between the government reimbursement price and the cost of the drug to the pharmacist. The evidence suggests that the BAP system of Ontario yields lower interch...

This paper measures the importance of entry and exit to the Canadian manufacturing sector in the 1970s. It focuses on the size of entrants as they move from a stage of infancy to adolescence. The exit rates of births, their length of life, and the growth path of entrants are presented. Distinctions are made between greenfield and merger entry. Whil...

Considerable interest in the effect of mergers in high technology industries exists because this sector is seen to be strategically important for industrial policy. This paper investigates the effect of mergers in this sector, comparing them to mergers in other industries. The effect of nationality is also examined. The paper outlines the magnitude...

While the entry and exit of firms is an important component of many economic models, measures of the importance of the associated firm turnover have been lacking. Using a specially constructed data base from the Canadian Census of Manufactures that allows firms and establishments to be followed over time. this paper presents basic data on the impor...

This paper uses a longitudinal data base of establishments and firms taken from the Canadian Census of Manufactures to measure the intensity of mergers and to compare them to other change that leads to firm turnover. The importance of mergers is placed in the context of the plant and firm turnover process by comparing the amount of each merger type...

Mobility statistics are direct measures of the intensity of competition; market structure indicators indirect measures. In this regard the most widely employed measure of market structure is the concentration ratio. Despite the fact that structural measures provide only proxies for the extent of competition, they are widely used by professional eco...

This paper provides measures of the importance of entry, exit, and other indicators of firm mobility in the Canadian manufacturing sector during the 1970s. It also asks whether these measures yield different information about market structure than traditional measures of concentration.

This paper examines the importance of firm mobility in the Canadian manufacturing sector during the 1970s. Its asks whether turnover measures yield different information about market structure than traditional measures of concentration. Two types of mobility statistics are used. The first focuses on firm entry and exit; the second measures mobility...

In a recent issue of this Journal, McRae and Tapon (1985) use the Canadian experience with compulsory patent licensing and three provincial drug reimbursement programs to evaluate post-patent barriers to entry in the pharmaceutical industry. In this paper we provide additional evidence on the influence of differing provincial regulations on the mar...

Entry can take different forms - new plant creation versus diversified merger - and can be undertaken by quite different actors - domestic as opposed to foreign firms. This study uses a comprehensive data base on Canadian firms built up from census of manufacturing records to quantify the importance of these different components. Regression analysi...

There is a growing literature on the importance of being first, which suggests that where there is uncertainty about the product quality of late entrants' brands the pioneering brand will retain a competitive advantage. This is consistent with studies of the U.S. drug industry. Using Canadian data for the drug industry it is shown that eliminating...

Census concentration measures do not account for either secondary output or imports. Taking these into account, for Canada in 1979, shows that measured concentration substantially overstates the degree to which a small number of firms controls a large proportion of industry output. Correcting for imports has a much greater effect than correcting fo...

When multiproduct plant economies exist, plant size and diversity decisions are closely linked. The disadvantage of small plant size can be offset by product-packing. The paper shows that within 4-digit industries, larger plant size is associated with greater product diversity. Then a cross-sectional regression at the 4-digit level indicates that C...

This paper examines the extent of small plant market share and the degree of suboptimal plant market share in the Canadian manufacturing sector in the 1970s at the 4-digit level of disaggregation. It does so by comparing the Canadian plant size distribution to the American so as to provide a standard for what might be considered suboptimal and then...

[eng] We present a two-sided search model where agents differ by their human capital endowment and where workers of different skill are imperfect substitutes. Then the labor market endogenously divides into disjoint segments and wage inequality will depend on the degree of labor market segmentation. The most important results are : 1) overall wage...

This paper calculates indices of central bank autonomy (CBA) for 163 central banks as of end-2003, and comparable indices for a subgroup of 68 central banks as of the end of the 1980s. The results confirm strong improvements in both economic and political CBA over the past couple of decades, although more progress is needed to boost political auton...

The market for corporate control plays an important role in ensuring that assets are deployed in an efficient and effective manner. However, on occasion, mergers might lead to a reduction in competition and a consequent rise in prices and/or other anticompetitive effects. The Competition Act 2002 provides that all mergers that meet certain financia...

Competition authorities typically issue Merger Guidelines setting out the framework within which merger assessment is conducted. Ireland is no exception. The Competition Authority is currently in the process of revising its 2002 Guidelines. In this paper we not only comment on the procedure that is being used to revise these Guidelines as well as t...

Half-title: Product market. Vita. Thesis (M.A.)--Queen's University, 1971. Bibliography: leaves 66-69. Microfilm of typescript.