Benedikt Herz Welcome to my webpage. I received my PhD in economics from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. I am currently working as an economist at the European Commission. On this webpage you can find a list of my research papers and other work in progress. I am mostly interested in applied microeconometrics and policy evaluation. My research covers areas such as labor economics, public economics, as well as economics of innovation and intellectual property rights. Any opinions expressed on this website do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. Contact me at benedikt.herz@gmail.com

Selected Publications in Peer-Reviewed Journals

“Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2024/2025”, Review of Industrial Organization (forthcoming), with L. Adelt, A. Baltzopoulos, R. Kotzeva, D. Kovo, F. Louge, D. Magos, J. Piechucka, E. Tarantino

“Retail Foreign Direct Investment by Brand Manufacturers”, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy (forthcoming), with R. Thomson

“The Effect of Design Protection on Price and Price dispersion: Evidence from Automotive Spare Parts”, working paper, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 79(102776) (2021), with M. Mejer

“Border Effects in European Public Procurement”, Journal of Economic Geography, 20(6) (2020), with X.L. Varela-Irimia

“Structural Change and the Fertility Transition”, CEPR working paper, Review of Economics and Statistics, 102(4) (2020), with P. Ager and M. Brueckner

“Accounting for Mismatch Unemployment”, Journal of the European Economic Association, 18(4) (2020), with T. van Rens

“Specific Human Capital and Wait Unemployment”, Journal of Labor Economics, 37(2) (2019)

“Effects of the European Union trademark: Lessons for the Harmonization of Intellectual Property Systems”, Research Policy, 48(7) (2019), with M. Mejer

“Movie Piracy and Displaced Sales in Europe: Evidence from Six Countries”, Information Economics and Policy, 43 (2018), with K. Kiljanski

“On the Fee Elasticity of the Demand for Trademarks in Europe”, Oxford Economic Papers, 68(4) (2016), with M. Mejer

Other Selected Publications

“Novo Holdings/Catalent: Novo takes a big bite”, DG COMP Competition Merger Brief, 1 (2025), with Daniel Irisarri Lolin, Cécile Manong, Hanna Perikangas, Dimosthenis Skarlatos, Zsolt Vertessy

“Microsoft/Activision Blizzard – the video gaming cloud on the horizon”, DG COMP Competition Merger Brief, 1 (2024), with Iulia Ionescu, Ana Pendes

“Google/Fitbit: Preserving Healthy Competition in Digital Markets”, DG COMP Competition Merger Brief, 1 (2021), with Leonie Hass, Fabio Polverino and João Vareda