State aid control: Theoretical aspects and empirical evidences

In order to ensure equal business conditions and fair competition for all market participants, competition policy regulation in the field of company activities control alone is not sufficient. Another very important aspect and condition to ensure fair competition is the control of the state aid given to the economy, which can favour certain market participants and put them in a privileged position. Hence, the state aid control in the European Union (EU) is a very important segment of the competition policy. In addition, building the institutional framework of competition policy inevitably implies building capacity for state aid control in the potential member states. Impact channels of state aid on competition are different and depend on the specificity of the situation and the applied measures of aid. The aim of the paper is to explore the difference between granted state aid in the EU and Serbia, as well as examine the potential impact of state aid on the level of market concentration as a measure of the efficiency of competition. In order to realize the defined aim, comparative and correlation analyses are used in this study.