scholarly journals Wettbewerbspolitischer Handlungsbedarf bei der Verknüpfung von zweiseitigen Märkten im Internet: Der Fall Google

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian von Engelhardt ◽  
Andreas Freytag ◽  
Volker Köllmann

AbstractWe discuss competition policy issues of vertical integration in internetbased two-sided markets against the background of the Google antitrust allegations. Network effects and economics of scale often lead to dominating companies, which are integrated over several markets. This implies efficiency gains but creates barriers to entry. Where entrants can appropriate dynamic effects accumulated by incumbents, barriers to entry are lowered but this reduces incumbents’ incentives to invest. Reducing multi homing and increasing switching costs is anti-competitive behaviour. Manipulating search results may leverage market power, but there is no theory on the ‚information power‘ of search engines. The concept of ‚search neutrality‘ is not convincing.

Author(s):  
Simon Roberts

Competition requires rivals. While this rivalry may come from imports, the development of local capabilities and productive capacity for rivalry, including by black industrialists in the South African context, means understanding the barriers to entry that local producers must overcome. Barriers to entry are also critical for the correct balance between the risks of over- and under-enforcement and are one reason why it has been recommended that countries should adopt different standards for competition evaluation. This chapter draws on studies of barriers to entry in different markets in South Africa to consider the nature and extent of these barriers and the implications for competition policy. It highlights issues related to regulatory barriers, consumer switching costs and branding, routes to market, and vertical integration, as well as economies of scale and access to finance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-147
Author(s):  
Aleksey Zazdravnykh

The article analyzes the practical aspects of the functioning of some barriers to entry in the era of digital transformation of industry markets. It is noted that under the influence of digitalization processes, both positive changes in the mechanism of market operation are recorded, as well as a number of negative circumstances that have become a serious challenge for antitrust agencies. Control of big data, initial investment in digital infrastructure, and broad technological capabilities of digital blocking of users, against the background of powerful network effects and pronounced economies of scale, carry the potential for significant growth in the market power of individual firms. The article substantiates that such trends theoretically pose a significant threat to competition, and can form new types of entry barriers. At the same time, practical arguments are presented that indicate the ambiguity of this position.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-171
Author(s):  
Mika Kallioinen

AbstractThis article aims to explain how the market for land functioned in medieval south-west Finland. The data show that in medieval times land was increasingly treated as something to be transferred in return for ready money, albeit within the limits set by the interests of the family. The land market was open to large segments of society, suggesting that barriers to entry were low. It was characterised by strong vertical integration, although asymmetric, as the majority of the transactions took place between participants from different social groups. The article will also consider the high degree of geographical integration in the land market.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (6) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Andrey Shastitko ◽  
Alexandr Kurdin ◽  
Anastasiya Morosanova

The article analyses the main features of the intellectual activity results market through the lens of the product boundaries definition. Frequently the pirated copy is not considered as a substitute for original products in legal cases. However, unlicensed computer programs should be included in the product market boundaries regardless of its legal status if the consumer considers them as substitutes. The difference between these types of products (original and pirated) are hidden not in transformation but in transaction characteristics. It is also important to take into consideration the possible complementarity between pirated and original products expressed in the information and network effects. In order to assess the buyers’ choice it is necessary to adjust the methods evaluating product market boundaries prescribed by «The Procedure of market competition analysis» of the Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service.


1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 51-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Pass ◽  
Brian Sturgess ◽  
Nicholas Wilson

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justus Haucap ◽  
Tobias Wenzel

AbstractThe Internet is characterized by competition between platforms which bring together potential partners of exchange. The degree of competition between these multi-sided platforms und market concentration are determined through (1) the strength of the direct and indirect network effects, (2) the extent of economies of scale, (3) the risk of congestition, (4) platform differentiation, and (5) the possibility of multi-homing. Depending on these factors different market concentrations and barriers to entry result. While there is no general tendency for concentration in the Internet and no general need for special market regulation of online content providers and intermediaries, single platforms may still have long lasting and significant market power which is unlikely to erode fastly, as the example of ebay illustrates.


Author(s):  
Hiroomi Onda ◽  
Toshiharu Miwa ◽  
Vincent R. Jackson ◽  
Dahwe Park ◽  
Kevin W. Reynolds ◽  
...  

This paper deals with a study on a method to support the decision on entering business areas in a business model consisting of manufacturing and service. This method divides the business model into business areas by the functions that support a company to decide whether it should enter business areas. This method prioritizes the areas from the aspects of profit opportunities, barriers to entry, and interactions between the areas. This method reduces the time to decide which business area to enter and reduces the number of examination objects to the number of business areas (n) or fewer from the total number of possible combinations (2 to the 2nd power n). To confirm the efficiency of this method, we demonstrated two case studies in the IT services industry. In the first case study, from the perspective of a UPS battery supplier, the number of examination objects is 3 when the number of business areas is 11. And the first case study indicates that a suitable strategy for a battery supplier is to concentrate on the strategy of supplying batteries. In the second case study, from the perspective of an IT service provider, the number of examination objects is 10 when the number of business areas is 11. The second case study indicates that a suitable strategy for an IT service provider is vertical integration from software development to data center operation and hardware manufacturing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. 538-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marah Noel Short ◽  
Vivian Ho

Provider organizations are increasing in complexity, as hospitals acquire physician practices and physician organizations grow in size. At the same time, hospitals are merging with each other to improve bargaining power with insurers. We analyze 29 quality measures reported to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Compare database for 2008 to 2015 to test whether vertical integration between hospitals and physicians or increases in hospital market concentration influence patient outcomes. Vertical integration has a limited effect on a small subset of quality measures. Yet increased market concentration is strongly associated with reduced quality across all 10 patient satisfaction measures at the 95% confidence level ( p < .05) and 6 of the 10 patient satisfaction measures remain statistically significant with a Bonferroni corrected p value ( p < .005). Regulators should continue to focus scrutiny on proposed hospital mergers, take steps to maintain competition, and reduce counterproductive barriers to entry.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document