Chamberlain on Product Differentiation, Market Structure and Competition: An essay

In the 1930s the imperfect competition - monopolistic competition debate took new approaches to the analysis of economic equilibrium with two main works which derived independently came published almost simultaneously in time: Mrs. Robinson’s Economics of Imperfect Competition [1933] and Chamberlin’s Theory of Monopolistic Competition [1933]. They face the competitive structure in completely different ways in aim, methodology and content. His work can be considered revolutionary in the sense that he consideres a market structure characterized by both competitive and monopoly elements and this is the “little” difference that made his work so important to the modern microeconomic theory with so important concepts such as product differentiation, the role of advertising and the randomness associated to the choice process: with Chamberlin, advertizing and product differentiation lead to new market structures, opening up field of industrial organization. Two dimensions are enormously relevant: product differentiation linked to selling costs (advertising, non-price competition, etc.) and numbers (includes oligopoly and competition linked to large numbers, even if demand curves not horizontal).oligopoly, monopolistic and imperfect competition, product and price differentiation, selling costs, advertising, demand curves.

Information Markets and Nonmarkets

As large amounts of data become available and can be communicated more easily and processed more e¤ectively, information has come to play a central role for economic activity and welfare in our age. This essay overviews contributions to the industrial organization of information markets and nonmarkets, while attempting to maintain a balance between foundational frameworks and more recent developments. We start by reviewing mechanism-design approaches to modeling the trade of information. We then cover ratings, predictions, and recommender systems. We turn to forecasting contests, prediction markets, and other institutions designed for collecting and aggregating information from decentralized participants. Finally, we discuss science as a prototypical information nonmarket with participants who interact in a non-anonymous way to produce and disseminate information. We aim to make the reader familiar with the central notions and insights in this burgeoning literature and also point to some open critical questions that future research will have to address

South American Expert Roundtable : increasing adaptive governance capacity for coping with unintended side effects of digital transformation

This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small- and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying “wanted/positive” and “unwanted/negative” effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization

Copyright and endogenous market structure: a glimpse from the journal-publishing market

This article explores the journal publishing industry in order to shed light on the overall economic consequences of copyright in markets. Since the rationale for copyright is among others to promise some market power to the holder of the successful copyrighted item, it also provides incentives to preserve and extend market power. A regular trait of copyright industries is high concentration and the creation of large catalogues of copyrights in the hands of incumbents. This outcome can be observed as the aggregation of rights and is one of the pivotal strategies for obtaining or extending market power, consistently with findings in other cases. Journal publishing is no different in this respect from other copyright industries, and in the last decade has experienced a similar trajectory, leading to a highly concentrated industry in which a handful of large firms increasingly control a substantial part of the market. It also provides a clear example of the effect of copyright dynamics on market structure, suggesting that a different attitude should be taken in lawmaking and law enforcement.copyright and market power, endogenous market structure, journal-publishing industry

Collusive agreements in the international copper market

The study deals with the collusive agreements in the international copper market to determine the possibility of success of a producers' stabilization scheme from a historical perspective. The research relies on the assumption that the operational conditions, the structure, behaviour and performance of an industry are in continuous interaction and by examining the relevant variables included in those concepts it is possible to make a general assessment. The study analyses fourteen policies orientated to influence the prices of copper; six of them carried out before the First World War; three undertaken in the inter-war period, and five after the Second World War (among which a successful action organised by the major importing nations is included). However, the emphasis of the study is given to the analysis of the period 1950-77. The word collusion has been used without any ethical, legal or moral connotation. It only refers to the ability of the producers to coordinate their decisions in those markets in which sales are highly concentrated in few producers, determining that the actions of the sellers are interdependent since the decisions of each of them have considerable repercussions on the rivals. The general conclusion is that the structure of the international copper market has become less concentrated and increasingly complex making more difficult the operation of any producers' collusive agreement. The current policies implemented by the governments of the major exporting nations have been creating the conditions for a more competitive and complex structure of the industry, reducing the possibility that concerted action can succeed

Models of Market Behaviour and Competition Law: Exclusive Dealing

The paper arose out of the authors\u27 belief that economic principles should, and probably will, play a larger role in the decisions of the new Competition Tribunal. The objective of the paper is to clarify some of the underlying assumptions and choices implicit in the regulation of competitive behaviour by examining the literature on economic analysis of market behaviour written by both economists and lawyers. The authors are especially concerned with the recent emphasis on strategic behaviour and its contrast to the Chicago school approach which recommends less interference with market behaviour. They examine the differences between the assumptions of both models and then consider the implications for the regulation of exclusive dealing. In particular, the authors examine the requirement that competition must be substantially lessened, by developing two different approaches to a rule-of-reason test