| Abstract: |
The main goal of this thesis is to compare the behavior and the institutional embedding of the national competition authorities of member countries of the EU and to assess the level of harmonization among them and in comparison to the institutions dealing with competition policy on the European level. The main contribution is a complex summary of the most important principles of competition policy functioning, the data collection and the construction of a simple competition policy harmonization index. By applying this index on a set of member countries, a high level of harmonization among the individual competition authorities was found. However, by comparing the results of the index for two non-member states, it is not possible to confirm the hypothesis of the membership in the EU being the only explication of the level of harmonization found. |
