Economic internationalization and discretionary rule-making in transatlantic competition relations

Abstract

This paper employs a cross-level analysis to explore the domestic and international factors responsible for cooperation between the European Union and the United States in competition policy. Economic internationalization interacts with domestic politics in both the EU and the US to create a cooperative outcome. The domestic politics of this international cooperation are simplified with a principal-agent model, in which politicians are the principals and competition regulators are the agents. The paper tests this approach across three bilateral EU-US competition agreements signed during the 1990s: The Bilateral Agreement, the Positive Comity Agreement and the Administrative Arrangements on Attendance