Professors Xavier Vives and Professor Paul Seabright will discuss "tying" or "bundling," a topic which has become an important issue in EU competition policy.

Our speakers will discuss the impact on competition when two products or services are bundled and examine if such bundling forecloses new competitors, impedes or enhances innovation, or benefits consumers.

Professor Xavier Vives is Professor of Economics and Finance, INSEAD, and the Portuguese Council Chaired Professor of European Studies. Professor Vives is also a Member of the Board of Governors of Fundació Empresa i Ciència.

He is the co-author, with K-U. Kühn, of "Information Exchange Among Firms and their Impact on Competition,” authored in 1995 for the European Commission. Professor Vives is also a columnist for La Vanguardia and Expansión; the Editor of the European Economic Review; Co-editor of the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy; Associate editor of the Rand Journal of Economics and Recherches Economiques de Louvain; and a Member of the editorial board of Economía Industrial.

Professor Paul Seabright is Professor of Economics at the Université de Toulouse I. Professor Seabright has been Professor of Economics, Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford and Assistant Director of Research, University of Cambridge.

He is currently Managing Editor of Economic Policy and the Maitre de Conférences, Ecole Polytechnique (Paris). He is the co-author of Merger in Daylight: the Economics and Politics of European Merger Control and Trawling for Minnows: European Competition Policy and Agreements between Firms.

Professor Seabright received his B.A. in Philosophy, Politics & Economics; his M.Phil. in Economics; and his D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford.