The relationship between regulation and innovation – intended both in organizational and technological terms – has always been particularly problematic. This is even more true in the case of digital platforms, i.e. those new hybrid animals which appeared in recent years in a wide array of sectors giving rise to major competition and regulatory issues.
The growing market power of Platforms through network effects and their role of gatekeepers have posed new challenges to regulation, and public institutions struggle to keep pace with the development of digital markets.
Some signs of advancement come  from  the EU, which is elaborating a comprehensive regulatory framework (the so-called Digital Services Act, expected in a proposal form at the end of 2020) aimed at introducing a new ex ante competition policy tool together with other innovative instruments to tame abuse against consumers and competitors. Meanwhile, in the US with the “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets”, the Antitrust Commission of the Parliament has suggested the need to break up the Big Tech.
Furthermore, the EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced interesting novelties concerning the right to collectively bargain, which will be presumably extended also to self-employed workers, thus addressing the unbalance of power between labour and capital in the context of digital markets.
The webinar will focus on the recent and expected evolution of antitrust policies and regulation of platform economy, highlighting strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and providing a comparative analysis of the dynamics emerging in particular in the Western world, with a close look at the EU and the US.
The webinar will also be an opportunity to present the Turin School of Regulation Observatory on digital markets and platform regulation.

Speakers

MELTEM BAĞIŞ AKKAYA, Turkish Competition Authority
Mrs. BAGIS AKKAYA is the Head of Department of Strategy Development and Acting Head of Department of External Relations and Competition Advocacy. She has been working for the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) for 22 years. She has a broad experience in handling merger & acquisition, cartel and abuse of dominance cases. She worked as an Economy Editor in the Turkish Daily News before joining the Authority. After graduating from Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences, she received a master’s degree in European Union Law in University of Essex with distinction. She has been teaching competition and regulation and digital economy in Turin School of Regulation (Italy) Summer School. She is also teaching digital economy in Atilim University, Ankara. She has been giving seminars in various international universities on digital economy in the last 10 years and has an extensive knowledge on competition, regulation and platform economy.

FRANCO BECCHIS, Turin School of Regulation
Franco Becchis is an economist and author. Scientific Director of Foundation for the Environment and of the Turin School of Regulation, he coordinates research programmes on the interaction between economics, energy and environment and on local public services, as well as capacity building and support activities for local public entities.  Teacher and lecturer in several schools and universities, he published Economia  in pillole and Finanza Happy Hour (Sperling&Kupfer, 2008 and 2012), Bestiario di Finanza and L’incarico (Castelvecchi, 2016 and 2018) and The Political Economy of Local Regulation (Palgrave Macmillian, 2016).  

VERA DEMARY, German Economic Institute (IW)
Dr Vera Demary has been head of the research unit “Digitalization, Structural Change and Competition” at the German Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne since January 2015. Her research covers topics on the interface between competition and digitization. Prior to that, Vera was head of the research unit Education Economics from 2013 to 2014. She joined the Institute in 2009 and worked different research positions on topics such as innovation, labor shortages and education. Before joining the Institute, Vera worked as a research assistant at the University of Cologne from 2005 to 2008. Vera received a B.A. in Economics from Paderborn University in Germany in 2004, a M.Sc. in Economics and Business from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 2005 and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cologne in 2008. 

JULIET SCHOR, Boston College
Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist at Boston College. Schor’s research focuses on the sociology of work, consumption, and climate change. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Schor received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Massachusetts. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of Economics and the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies. Schor’s most recent book is After the Gig: how the sharing economy got hijacked and how to win it back (U of California Press, 2020). Previous books include The Overworked American, The Overspent American, and Plenitude: the new economics of true wealth. Her current research topics include the gig economy and the future of work, time use, and the drivers of carbon emissions. She is currently working on an NSF-funded project on the “algorithmic workplace.” Schor is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of Better Future Project, a Massachusetts-based climate activist organization.
 

Working language: English

Partecipation is free upon registration.

For further info please contact info@turinschool.eu