Welcome to the Competition Policy Center

CPC Professors

"The Obama Brain Trust"


Haas School Professor and recent IBER Chair Carl Shapiro, an expert in the economics of antitrust and innovation, has been named Chief Economist in the US Department of Justice's antitrust division. Shapiro, the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy, previously served as deputy assistant attorney general for economic analysis in the Justice Department from 1995 to 1996. He has been a member of the Haas faculty since 1991.

Last year Shapiro stepped down as director of the Institute of Business and Economics Research after two five-year terms. During his tenure, IBER expanded its research activity and grants and created the social sciences laboratory Xlab and several new centers.

Shapiro also has helped establish UC Berkeley as a leading force in the patent reform effort by bringing Federal Trade Commission hearings to the Haas School and organizing a campus-wide conference on patent reform. Shapiro has testified twice in 2005 before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.

 

New Working Papers:

"Essentiality Test of Profits for Patent Pools" Richard Gilbert (September 2009)

"Efficient Division of Profits from Complementary Innovations," Richard J. Gilbert ad Michael L. Katz (June 2007, revised June 2009)

"Antitrust Evaluation of Horizontal Mergers: An Economic Alternative to Market Definition" Joseph Farrell and Carl Shapiro (November 25, 2008)

"Scarcity of Ideas and Options to Invest in R&D," Nisvan Erkal and Suzanne Scotchmer (December 2007)

"Reinvigorating Horizontal Merger Enforcement," Jonathan B. Baker and Carl Shapiro (April 2007)

"Patent Reform: Aligning Reward and Contribution," Carl Shapiro (March 2007)

"How Strong Are Weak Patents?," Joseph Farrell and Carl Shapiro (January 2007)

"Competition and Innovation," Richard J. Gilbert (January 2007)

"Should Good Patents Come in Small Packages? A Welfare Analysis of Intellectual Property Bundling," Richard J. Gilbert and Michael L. Katz (January 2007)

"Patent Hold-Up and Royalty Stacking," Mark A. Lemley and Carl Shapiro (January 2007)

"Antitrust," Louis Kaplow and Carl Shapiro (January 2007)

News & Events

2009 Federal Trade Commission Hearings at UC Berkeley
The Federal Trade Commission held its final two days of hearings in a series exploring the evolving market for intellectual property on May 4-5, 2009, in cooperation with the Competition Policy Center and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.  The hearings explored how markets for patents and technology operate in different industries, whether those markets operate efficiently, and how patent policy might be adjusted to better promote innovation and competition.  The hearings were part of an ongoing series examining changes in patent law, patent-related business models, and new learning about the patent system since the October 2003 FTC report, “To Promote Innovation:  The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy.”

Download the agenda. More information about the hearings is available at the project website.

Ryan Kellogg Named 2009 CPC Dissertation Prize Winner
The 2009 CPC Dissertation Prize goes to Ryan Kellogg for his paper "Learning by Drilling: Inter-Firm Learning and Relationship Persistence in the Texas Oilpatch." Ryan graduated from Agriculture and Resource Economics in the spring of 2008. He is now an assistant professor in the Economics Department at the University of Michigan. Ryan's research bridges industrial organization, energy economics, and environmental policy-projects range from analyses of the behavior of oil and gas firms to evaluations of U.S. pollution abatement programs. Ryan teaches undergraduate and graduate industrial organization.
<Download> a complete list of Dissertation Prize winners from 2002-2009.

"Antitrust and Intellectual Property in a Changing Political Climate"
The Antitrust and Intellectual Property in a Changing Political Climate conference, held at UC Berkeley on February 5 and 6, 2009, was co-sponsored by the Competition Policy Center (CPC) and the Antitrust and Intellectual Property Law sections of the American Bar Association. The event covered challenging economic and legal issues in patent pooling and patent litigation settlements, intellectual property licensing, market definition and market power in technology markets and standard setting. <details>

"Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Effects of Competing with Superstars"
CPC is proud to announce that Jen Brown, PhD candidate in Agriculture and Resource Economics, was the 2008 Dissertation Prize winner.

2008 Compass Prizes
Deadline for submissions for 2008 Compass Lexecon Prizes is February 29, 2008. Separate prizes are available for faculty and for graduate students.

2007 Compass Prizes
See recent winners of this prestigious award.