Minimalne maloprodajne cene - legalizam naspram efikasnosti

Abstract

Minimalne maloprodajne cene (dalje: MMC) analiziraju se s ekonomske i pravne tačke gledišta na jednom konkretnom primeru iz prakse. U našem pravnom sistemu ugovorne klauzule o MMC su zabranjene i automatski ništave. U konkretnom slučaju ekonomska analiza ne podržava ovakvu rigidnost i upućuje na promenu regulative. MMC ne moraju uvek da dovedu do narušavanja konkurencije na relevantnom tržištu proizvoda, tako da bi trebalo dati šansu tržišnim učesnicima da dokažu opravdanost svoje prodajne politike. Time bi se stvorila osnova za donošenje obrazložene odluke u kojoj bi se uporedili negativni efekti ograničavanja konkurencije unutar jedne robne marke sa pozitivnim efektima povećanja konkurencije između više robnih marki i unapređenja efikasnosti u distribuciji proizvoda. Ujedno, bio bi napravljen bolji odnos između drakonskih kazni i verovatnoće donošenja ekonomski pogrešnih odluka o zaštiti konkurencije. Ekonomska analiza zasniva se na oceni elastičnosti tražnje u sistemu linearnih jednačina tražnje ocenjenih uz ograničenja na parametre i na impulsnim funkcijama u okviru vektorskog autoregresivnog modela. Pravna analiza upoređuje zakonodavna rešenja u Srbiji i Evropskoj uniji.

Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) refers to agreements between a seller and a buyer setting limits to the price at which the buyer may resell the products pershased. It is concerned as the hardcore constrain in vertical agreements. We analyse a special case of RPM, still under investigation by the Commission for Protecting Competition, in which a manufacturer set, as an enforceable obligation, a price floor bellow which retailers may not sell the product, but the other manufacturers on the relevant market did not have such agreements. In the Serbian legal system RPM terms are per se forbidden and deemed annuled. Retailers dealing with the involved manufactures might be taken responsible for breaking the law on protecting competition. We argue in favour of replacing this rule with the opposite rule of reason under which the competition authority should balance procompetitive and anticompetitive effects of RPM in each case before it passes any decision. There are no a priory theoretical arguments to declare which rule is superior, neither clear empirical evidences whether RPM are always harmful for consumers. In the said case RPM restricted to some extent intra-brend competition, but there are convincing evidences that inter-brend restrictions were not present. Consumers evidently benefited from such competition. Generally speaking, the rule of reason will put more economic analysis into legal cases of protecting competition in Serbia, which is mostly absent so far, and provide a better balance between draconic fines and probability of passing erroneous decisions. We estimated in this paper elasticity of demand based on a system of regression equations estimated under restriction on parameters, and worked with impulse functions from a VAR model in order to simulate dynamic processes of price competition. We addressed issues such as relevant market, substitution of differentiated goods, own and cross-price elasticity of demand, intra-brend and inter-brend competition, consumers welfare, creation and breaking-up of a cartel. Finally, we compared Serbian and the EU legal system concerning RPM provisions.