Addressing Big Tech\u27s Market Power: A Comparative Institutional Analysis

This Article provides a comparative institutional analysis of the three leading approaches to addressing the market power of large digital platforms: (1) traditional antitrust law, the approach thus far taken in the United States; (2) ex ante conduct rules, the approach embraced by the European Union\u27s Digital Markets Act and several bills under consideration in the U.S. Congress; and (3) ongoing agency oversight, the approach embraced by the United Kingdom with its newly established Digital Markets Unit. After identifying the general advantages and disadvantages of each approach, the Article examines how they are likely to play out in the context of digital platforms. It first examines whether antitrust is indeed too slow and indeterminate to tackle market power concerns arising from digital platforms, as proponents of ex ante conduct rules and agency oversight have suggested. It next considers possible error costs resulting from the most prominent proposed conduct rules: (1) structural separations and line of business restrictions; (2) bans on self-preferencing by platforms; (3) requirements to allow platform users to remove pre-installed software, sideload apps, and use alternative payment systems to make purchases on the platform; and (4) data-portability, data-sharing, and platform interoperability mandates. It then shows how three features of the agency oversight model - its broad focus, political susceptibility, and perpetual control - render it particularly vulnerable to rent-seeking efforts and agency capture. The Article ultimately concludes that antitrust\u27s downsides (relative indeterminacy and slowness) are likely to be less significant than those of ex ante conduct rules (large error costs resulting from high informational requirements) and ongoing agency oversight (rent-seeking and agency capture)

Addressing Big Tech’s Market Power: A Comparative Institutional Approach

This Article provides a comparative institutional analysis of the three leading approaches to addressing the market power of large digital platforms: (1) traditional antitrust law, the approach thus far taken in the United States; (2) ex ante conduct rules, the approach embraced by the European Union’s Digital Markets Act and several bills under consideration in the U.S. Congress; and (3) ongoing agency oversight, the approach embraced by the United Kingdom with its newly established “Digital Markets Unit.” After identifying the general advantages and disadvantages of each approach, the Article examines how they are likely to play out in the context of digital platforms. It first examines whether antitrust is indeed too slow and indeterminate to tackle market power concerns arising from digital platforms, as proponents of ex ante conduct rules and agency oversight have suggested. It next considers possible error costs resulting from the most prominent proposed conduct rules: (1) structural separations and line of business restrictions; (2) bans on self-preferencing by platforms; (3) requirements to allow platform users to remove pre-installed software, “side-load” apps, and use alternative payment systems to make purchases on the platform; and (4) data-portability, data-sharing, and platform interoperability mandates. It then shows how three features of the agency oversight model—its broad focus, political susceptibility, and perpetual control—render it particularly vulnerable to rent-seeking efforts and agency capture. The Article ultimately concludes that antitrust’s downsides (relative indeterminacy and slowness) are likely to be less significant than those of ex ante conduct rules (large error costs resulting from high informational requirements) and ongoing agency oversight (rent-seeking and agency capture)

Valuing diversity and establishing an approach to supporting excluded groups

Minority students and minority employees in Higher Engineering Education experience inequality. For academic staff these inequalities impact their personal development and career progression. To continue to grow and for engineering education to thrive as a professional discipline we must encourage diversity within both the student and staff populations. This paper cautions against a simple notion of diversity, rather a truly diverse culture within engineering is needed, one in which there is diversity of opportunity, diversity of thought and diversity of experience. To enable a more inclusive environment to flourish we must understand the scale of the inequalities which exist. However, this paper demonstrates that there are significant limitations to the current diversity data within the UK which leaves room for under-reporting and over-generalising. In addition, there are cultural challenges which give further likelihood to non-disclosure and lack of self-reporting. This paper proposes that further research is needed into the true lack of diversity within engineering and describes one example of a ‘thought experiment’ conducted by the researchers to start unpacking the data and highlighting the scale of the issue

The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions

The 21st Conference of the Parties (CoP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shifted the nature of the political economy challenge associated with achieving a global emissions trajectory that is consistent with a climate. The shifts generated by CoP21 place country decision-making and country policies at centre stage. Under moderately optimistic assumptions concerning the vigour with which CoP21 objectives are pursued, nearly every country in the world will set about to design and implement the most promising and locally relevant policies for achieving their agreed contribution to global mitigation. These policies are virtually certain to vary dramatically across countries. In short, the world stands at the cusp of an unprecedented era of policy experimentation in driving a clean energy transition. This book steps into this new world of broad-scale and locally relevant policy experimentation. The chapters focus on the political economy of clean energy transition with an emphasis on specific issues encountered in both developed and developing countries. Lead authors contribute a broad diversity of experience drawn from all major regions of the world, representing a compendium of what has been learned from recent initiatives, mostly (but not exclusively) at country level, to reduce GHG emissions. As this new era of experimentation dawns, their contributions are both relevant and timely

Down the rabbit hole: Professional identities, professional learning, and change in one Australian school

This study takes researcher and reader down the rabbit hole of story with its unique approach to the phenomena of professional identity, professional learning, and school change. It examines the perspectives of 14 educators: a range of teachers and leaders in one independent Australian school and in the context of a teacher growth intervention. Set against the backdrop of the global push for teacher quality, and consequent worldwide initiatives in the arenas of teacher professional learning and school change, the study generates context-specific connections between lived critical moments of identity formation, learning, and leading. A bricolaged paradigmatic stance weaves together a social constructionist, phenomenological approach to narrative inquiry. Data were generated primarily from individual narrative-eliciting interviews, of the researcher, two teachers, and 11 school leaders. Extended literary metaphor and known literary characters operate as a symbolic and structural frame. Alice, the White Rabbit, and the Cheshire Cat, from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, are analytical tools for the presentation and analysis of the perspectives of researcher, teacher, and leader participants. While the study set out to explore the ways in which educators’ experiences of professional learning (trans)form their senses of professional identity, it found that it is not just professional learning, but epiphanic life experiences, which shape professional selves and practices. School context, and the alignment of the individual with the collective, emerged as key factors for individual and school change. Transformation of educators’ identities and practices was evident in environments which were supportive, challenging, and growth focused, rather than evaluation driven. Identity formation, individual professional growth, and collective school change were revealed to be unpredictable, fluid processes in which small, unexpected moments can have far-reaching effects. The findings have implications for the theorisation of identities, and the research and implementation of professional learning and school change

The symmetrical tyger: the issues and tensions of teaching Romantic poetry at A Level

Poetry is an expression of creativity through language, which has the power to unlock universal themes that link all of humanity.Historically, the genre has been a neglected area of the curriculum that has suffered becauseof insufficient curriculum time, poor teaching, as well as a deference perpetuated in some circles, which has resulted in the medium being regarded as impenetrable by many pupils and teachers. This researchfocuses on understanding the placeof Romantic poetry within the A-levelcurriculum and consideringstudent’s holistic growth as well as their cerebral development. I explore what poetry experiences students have at A-level,consider the attitude of teachers to Romantic poetry and explore the impact that this has on their students. Working from a constructivist grounded theory perspective, this study considers the attitudes and experiences of a group of year 12 and 13 students in Somerset, England, towards Romantic poetry. Exploring the priorities, interests and understanding of the sample group of A-level students and their teachers,I ultimately conclude that the foundational experiences that students have of poetry are very important and the attitudes exhibited by their teachers can be very influential