This book analyzes the business model of enterprises in the digital economy by taking an economic and comparative perspective. The aim of this book is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the anti-competitive behavior of companies who monopolize data, and put forward the necessity of regulating data monopoly by exploring the causes and characteristics of their anti-competitive behavior. It studies four aspects of the differences between data monopoly and traditional monopolistic behavior, namely defining the relevant market for data monopolies, the entry barrier, the problem of determining the dominant position of data monopoly, and the influence on consumer welfare. It points out the limitations of traditional regulatory tools and discusses how new regulatory methods could be developed within the competition legal framework to restrict data monopolies. It proposes how economic analytical tools used in traditional anti-monopoly law are facing challenges and how competition enforcement agencies could adjust regulatory methods to deal with new anti-competitive behavior by data monopolies.

This book analyzes the business model of enterprises in the digital economy by taking an economic and comparative perspective. The aim of this book is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the anti-competitive behavior of companies who monopolize data, and put forward the necessity of regulating data monopoly by exploring the causes and characteristics of their anti-competitive behavior. It studies four aspects of the differences between data monopoly and traditional monopolistic behavior, namely defining the relevant market for data monopolies, the entry barrier, the problem of determining the dominant position of data monopoly, and the influence on consumer welfare. It points out the limitations of traditional regulatory tools and discusses how new regulatory methods could be developed within the competition legal framework to restrict data monopolies. It proposes how economic analytical tools used in traditional anti-monopoly law are facing challenges and how competition enforcement agencies could adjust regulatory methods to deal with new anti-competitive behavior by data monopolies.

As outrage over the socially damaging practices of technology companies intensifies, this book asks what it actually means to hold a 'monopoly' in the tech world and offers an in-depth analysis of how these corporate giants are produced, financialized, and regulated.

The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.

Through three case studies, this book investigates whether digital industries are naturally monopolistic and evaluates policy approaches to market power.

Considered the cutting edge of microeconomic theory in the 1970s, natural monopoly research remains an active and fertile field. Policy makers and regulators have begun to implement entry and pricing policies that are based on theoretical and empirical analyses. This book develops a comprehensive framework for analyzing natural monopoly. The authors first present a historical overview of regulatory economics, followed by analyses of optimal pricing and investment for single- and multiproduct natural monopolies. Topics covered include cost and demand structures, efficiency impacts of linear and multipart pricing, peak-load pricing, capacity determination, and the sustainability of natural monopolies. After a survey and analysis of natural monopoly regulation in practice, the links between technological change and regulation are identified. The book concludes with a discussion of the alternatives to traditional regulation, including public ownership, franchise schemes, quality regulation, and new incentive systems. Throughout the book, issues from the telecommunications and energy industries are used to illustrate key points. Its integrated framework will make it useful to academic economists, regulatory analysts, business researchers, and advanced students of public utility economics.

This book analyzes the business model of enterprises in the digital economy by taking an economic and comparative perspective. The aim of this book is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the anti-competitive behavior of companies who monopolize data, and put forward the necessity of regulating data monopoly by exploring the causes and characteristics of their anti-competitive behavior. It studies four aspects of the differences between data monopoly and traditional monopolistic behavior, namely defining the relevant market for data monopolies, the entry barrier, the problem of determining the dominant position of data monopoly, and the influence on consumer welfare. It points out the limitations of traditional regulatory tools and discusses how new regulatory methods could be developed within the competition legal framework to restrict data monopolies. It proposes how economic analytical tools used in traditional anti-monopoly law are facing challenges and how competition enforcement agencies could adjust regulatory methods to deal with new anti-competitive behavior by data monopolies.

Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband. This steady slide backward not only deprives consumers of vital services needed in a competitive employment and business market—it also threatens the economic future of the nation. This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access. Using the 2011 merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as a lens, Crawford examines how we have created the biggest monopoly since the breakup of Standard Oil a century ago. In the clearest terms, this book explores how telecommunications monopolies have affected the daily lives of consumers and America's global economic standing.

This book asks a simple question: are the tech giants monopolies? In the current environment of suspicion towards the major technology companies as a result of concerns about their power and influence, it has become commonplace to talk of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Netflix as the modern day version of the 19th century trusts. In turn, the tech giants are vilified for a whole range of monopoly harms towards consumers, workers and even the democratic process. In the US and the EU, antitrust, and regulatory reform is on the way. Using economics, business and management science as well legal reasoning, this book offers a new perspective on big tech. It builds a theory of "moligopoly". The theory advances that the tech giants, or at least some of them, coexist both as monopolies and oligopoly firms that compete against each other in an environment of substantial uncertainty and economic dynamism. With this, the book assesses ongoing antitrust and regulatory policy efforts. It demonstrates that it is counterproductive to pursue policies that introduce more rivalry in moligopoly markets subject to technological discontinuities. And that non-economic harms like privacy violations, fake news, or hate speech are difficult issues that belong to the realm of regulation, not antimonopoly remediation.

A comprehensive account of the decades-long, multiple antitrust actions against Microsoft and an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust law in the digital age. For more than two decades, the U.S. Department of Justice, various states, the European Commission, and many private litigants pursued antitrust actions against the tech giant Microsoft. In investigating and prosecuting Microsoft, federal and state prosecutors were playing their traditional role of reining in a corporate power intent on eliminating competition. Seen from another perspective, however, the government's prosecution of Microsoft—in which it deployed the century-old Sherman Antitrust Act in the volatile and evolving global business environment of the digital era—was unprecedented. In this book, two experts on competition policy offer a comprehensive account of the multiple antitrust actions against Microsoft—from beginning to end—and an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust law in the twenty-first century. Gavil and First describe in detail the cases that the Department of Justice and the states initiated in 1998, accusing Microsoft of obstructing browser competition and perpetuating its Windows monopoly. They cover the private litigation that followed, and the European Commission cases decided in 2004 and 2009. They also consider broader issues of competition policy in the age of globalization, addressing the adequacy of today's antitrust laws, their enforcement by multiple parties around the world, and the difficulty of obtaining effective remedies—all lessons learned from the Microsoft cases.