Issues

Platform Revolution

Platforms are businesses that serve two groups of users, as eBay serves both sellers and buyers. Platforms produce many benefits for society, but disrupt traditional markets. Managers must adopt new strategies to succeed in these markets.

Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like

Net neutrality rules stop Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking online content; nondiscrimination rules limit interference short of blocking. Nondiscrimination rules should ban discrimination against specific applications and broad categories of applications.

Exporting Standards: The Externalization of the EU's Regulatory Power via Markets

The European Union (EU) exports power and influence to the rest of the world through its legal institutions and standards. Global commerce has become “Europeanized.” This trend is an inadvertent byproduct of the EU’s effort to create a single market, not “regulatory imperialism.”

Competition Policy and Free Trade: Antitrust Provisions in PTAs

Why do preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include terms concerning antitrust or competition policy? Some argue that governments use competition policy to protect local firms against foreign competition. A better theory is that trade makes it hard for national authorities to enforce competition policy.

The Microsoft Antitrust Cases: Competition Policy for the Twenty-First Century

Microsoft rose to dominance in the 1980s, like IBM and Intel. Between 1990 and 2009, authorities in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) carried out antitrust actions against Microsoft. The outcome shows that competition law is relevant to the fast-changing high-tech sector.

Does Service Bundling Reduce Churn?

This study considers whether firms that sell telecommunications services as a bundle find it easier to retain customers. The data shows that bundling does reduce “churn” for pay television, broadband, and telephone service.

Standard-Essential Patents

This paper proposes a solution to the problem of inefficient license pricing for patents included in standards.

Dynamics of Open Source Movements

This paper explores how open-source software projects evolve. Factors include gains in quality, contributing programmers, and users who offer customer support. Commercial firms compete with open source projects, and must choose how to price their product in response to open source offerings.

Why the Right to Data Portability Likely Reduces Consumer Welfare: Antitrust and Privacy Critique

This article analyzes the potential weaknesses of the European Union’s potential new right to data portability.

The First-Order Approach to Merger Analysis

This technical paper presents a new method for predicting the effects of a merger between two firms.