International Monopoly Research Articles

International governance of advancing artificial intelligence

AbstractNew technologies with military applications may demand new modes of governance. In this article, we develop a taxonomy of technology governance forms, outline their strengths, and red-team their weaknesses. In particular, we consider the challenges and opportunities posed by advancing artificial intelligence, which is likely to have substantial dual-use properties. We conclude that subnational governance, though prevalent and mitigating some risks, is insufficient when the individual rewards from societally harmful actions outweigh normative sanctions, as is likely to be the case with AI. Nationally enforced standards are promising ways to govern AI deployment, but they are less viable in the “race-to-the-bottom” environments that are becoming common. When it comes to powerful technologies with military implications, there is only one multilateral option with a strong historical precedent: a non-proliferation plus norms-of-use regime, which we call NPT+. We believe that a non-proliferation regime may, therefore, be the necessary foundation for AI governance. However, AI may exhibit characteristics that would make a non-proliferation regime less effective than it has proven for nuclear weapons. As an alternative, verification-backed restrictions on AI development and use would address more risks, but they face challenges in the case of advanced AI, and we show how these challenges may not have technical solutions. Perhaps more importantly, we show that there is no clear example of major powers restricting the development of a powerful military technology when that technology lacks a ready substitute. We, therefore, turn to a final alternative, International Monopoly, which was the preferred solution of many scholars and policymakers in the early nuclear era. It should be considered again for governing AI: a monopoly would require less-invasive monitoring, though at the possible cost of eroding national sovereignty. Ultimately, we conclude that it is too soon to tell whether a non-proliferation regime, a verification-based regime, or an International Monopoly is most feasible for governing AI. Nonetheless, a variety of policies would yield a high return across all three scenarios, and we conclude by identifying some of these steps that could be taken today.

International monopoly union coordination under the presence of externalities and costs

Despite the advantages of holding monopoly power, unions rarely coordinate their wage demands across countries. In this paper, I argue that the costs of coordination and externalities can explain such behaviour. In the model, monopolistic unions set the wage in each country, and the firm keeps the right-to-manage. If the domestic union raised its wage, the firm would substitute production of the domestic good for the foreign one, reducing employment. The union would be worse off and it would have no incentives to deviate. Upon coordination, unions can raise the wage, share the loss of employment, and be better off. Two extensions are provided: right-to-manage model and differentiated costs of coordination.

토픽모델링과 시계열 분석을 활용한 국내외 독과점 산업 연구 동향 분석

Many countries have made efforts to prevent the concentration of a few major corporations and monopolistic practices by developing and improving fair trade laws and antitrust regulations. However, the emergence of new industries and changes in trading patterns due to increased online transactions amid the COVID-19 pandemic have created gaps in existing laws. We aim to predict trends in monopolistic industries to proactively prevent such problems by establishing relevant laws or regulations. In order to examine the research trends on domestic and international monopolies, we collected abstracts of papers related to monopoly regulation from the RISS database for domestic papers and the Web of Science for international papers from 1995 to 2021. After preprocessing the data, LDA topic modeling was conducted to extract the top 15 significant topics. Moreover, we proposed a method for calculating the topic's importance to measure how actively research has progressed. We employed the linear regression model to examine the trends in research importance for each topic, and the ARIMA model was applied to predict the future trends in research importance for the next three years. While no significant trends were observed in the international data, the findings from the domestic data indicated a significant increasing volume of research on “online transactions” in the future.

Globalization of Cinematographic Communication

The article examines the globalization – in its Americanization format – of the international cinematic communication within the perspective of the cultural diversity issue. The globalization process is comprehended as a result of the historical succession of market formations: from free competition in American cinema to an oligopoly and on to a national and an international monopoly. During the period of polipoly, the trail for globalization was blazed by the grande dame of the cinématographe: France. The United States, where in 1908 the market share of French films equaled 70%, mounted a resolute challenge. Under consideration are three factors – institutional, geopolitical, and creative – of the loss by the French of their domination over the American and, then, their own market. To the soft power of American cinema, the French state responded with the quota stimulation for the exhibition of national films, motivating it, among other things, by the necessity of providing for the external and internal security of the state, by the guardianship of customs and national traditions. To the quotas as a means of mitigating the soft power of the United States did recourse some other countries too: larger ones, for economic considerations; smaller ones, for cultural. The globalizational might of the American film industry is explained through the rational choice of the main line for its stylistic development and the filmmakers’ masterfulness, as well as through the professionalism of managemental and marketing actors, investment from big capital, and through support from government in its push for the «cultural hegemony» of the United States. The major studios that emerged during the period of oligopoly (1909– 1929) competed with one another on the terms of a certain accord. With the means of competing by supercostly investments, far beyond the capabilities of smaller studios, the majors established for the domestic market a regime of national monopoly (1930–1946). On the world market the elected method of competition enabled the American film industry, in the second half of the 1940s, to gain the position of the international monopolist. An important role in the process was played by Motion Picture Export Association, established in 1945: a sort of «a diplomatic service» that functioned with permission from and under the support of the U.S. government. From its position of the global monopolist the American film industry strives not only to dominate in the intercultural cinematic communication, but, in this status and as a means of the popular geopolitics, to control it through lobbying and by exporting capital and goods. The transborder circulation of products by various national cinemas and cultural diversity of cinematography have largely fallen prey the globalization process. On the basis of vast factual research is recreated the state of the art for the imbalance in the intercultural film communication. When, in a social­functional respect, the importing of films mainly supplants their production in a certain country, the socium, by a large magnitude, is deprived of the chance to reproduce its culture and, accordingly, its identity with the means of depicting its own image and of mastering it. The making of national cinematic picture of the world and its integration into the communicative process becomes a topical task of providing for cultural diversity.

Sacral Light Monetization: Political Economy of Church Light from Peter I till the “Wax Hunger” of the First World War

In the article the author analyzes the process of the formation of the external state monopoly of the candle trade I Russia against the background of the description of the sacral light place in the church liturgical space and eastern Christian mysticism. The author describes the so-called “church-light” operation based on the lending rate and meant to secure stable modernization process in Russia through spiritual educational institutions. Ht claims that candle standardization destroyed the personalistic aspect of the church symbolism and the divine service interpretation by the believers. The author shows how the external state monopoly of the candle trade lead, through the system of candle factories foundation, to the economic dependence of Russian Orthodox Church on international monopoly. The article also deals with the restoration of the church liturgical space usefulness in the time of the “wax crisis” during the First World War through the organization of public singing after service.

Система об’єктивних економічних законів в реаліях системно-суб’єктивного економічного беззаконня

The article reveals the differences of systemic action of the laws of the social form of material world from the action of the laws determining the motion of the four natural forms of matter. The author shows the difference between the consequences of violating natural and social laws. The meaningful understanding of the category "economic law" is deepened and the general list of the system of objective economic laws is specified. The author structurizes the main classification groups of laws, which are united based on the most typical features. According to the criteria of system weight, as well as essential content and spatio-temporal coordinates of the regulatory action, four block-type groups of laws are distinguished. The author singles out differentiated subgroups of laws, which are united by six system-specific features. The article shows the destructive nature of "scientific" dogmas of financial-and-debt "liberal-monetarism". Revealed the encouraging motivation that determines the dominant behavior of the current global monopoly capital, which is aimed at destroying the systemic action of the mechanisms of the laws of market economy. In particular, the author shows the ways of destruction of the mechanism of action of the law of value and laws of money circulation which provide the equivalent character of commodity production and exchange. Displayed specific manifestations of systemic and subjective lawlessness prevailing in the system of monetary and financial-debt relations at the global and national-state levels. The author assesses the consequences of financial and credit expansion for countries with different development levels in the capitalist mode of production leading to suffocation of national economies by the international monopolies by forming an unbearable burden of servicing foreign borrowings and withdrawal of invaluable land and other natural resources into private ownership of global corporate-monopolistic creditors.

International Trade and Technological Competition in Markets with Dynamic Increasing Returns

We build a simple dynamic model to study the effects of technological learning, market selection and international competition in the determination of export flows and market shares. The model features two countries populated by firms with heterogeneous productivity levels and sales. Market selection in each country is driven by a finite pairwise Polya urn process. We show that market selection leads either to a national or to an international monopoly in presence of a static distribution of firm productivity levels. We then incorporate firm learning and entry-exit in the model and we show that the market structure does not converge to a monopoly. In addition, we show that the extended model is able to jointly reproduce a wide ensemble of stylized facts concerning intra-industry trade, industry and firm dynamics.

Did profitable slave trading enable the expansion of empire?: The Asiento de Negros, the South Sea Company and the financial revolution in Great Britain

In 1711, British Parliament chartered the South Sea Company, a public–private corporation chartered to reduce the cost of government borrowing by swapping illiquid short-term government debt for tradeable shares of the South Sea Co. To attract subscribers, the government also awarded the South Sea Co. an international monopoly in the trade of African slaves to Spanish America—the Asiento de Negros. This paper considers the extent to which Asiento-related slave trading was profitable for South Sea Co. shareholders and beneficial to the British financial revolution between 1713 and 1743. First, we use historical financial data to estimate the parameters of a capital asset pricing model of excess returns for South Sea Co. shareholders. We find that the Asiento contract increased risk-adjusted excess returns on South Sea Co. stock between 18 and 24% per year. Second, we estimate profit margins in the South Sea Co. Asiento slave trade. These show a stark positive correlation with company share prices before and after the South Sea Bubble of 1720. Adding slave ship departures to the CAPM specifications confirms the direct contribution of slave trading to shareholder returns. We also find that the Asiento and Asiento-related slave trading increased central government fiscal surplus by 16%. This suggests that profitable slave trading by the South Sea Co. under the Asiento enhanced Great Britian’s fiscal capacity, which could be utilized to enhance a military capacity necessary for securing an empire.

Глобализация vs национальное государство – попятное движение?

In early 21st century, in various parts of Europe and America there have been attempts of backsliding from free movement of people and capitals inherent to globalization era, and restoration of full sovereignty of a nation state. Presenting features of this trend are different: nationalist forces’ coming to power in Eastern Europe, Brexit, election of D. Trump as U. S. President, the populists’ victory in parliamentary elections in Italy. The Populism of diverse colors becomes a driving force of such attempts. The tendency mentioned above is based on a widespread dissatisfaction with the neo-liberal character of globalization coming from domination of international monopolies and oligopolies in this process, which neglect the variety of local conditions and prioritize their own vested interests. The supremacy of the market element gives important advantages to the strongest, the most mobile and faster developing participant of the process, not taking whichever national and social interests in consideration. At the same time, free cross-border displacement of human flows creates conditions for erosion of the European Christian identity, facilitates the appearance of hotbeds of the Islamic terrorism. Within the boundaries of the European Union, a protest against the bureaucratic character of integration processes regulation merges into the discontent with consequences of neo-liberal globalization. The abovementioned crisis trends make us address the experience of the past. The political crises of the contemporary history, which caused wars and revolutions, were often construed as harbingers of an inevitable collapse of the existing development model (suffice it to recall the forecasts of Karl Marx and his followers). However, not the death of capitalism was a result of historical evolution, but its reformation and the emergence of social welfare state. The crisis affiliated to globalization may have similar effect. There are quite a number of proposals aimed at the EU reforming. Efforts to improve or сounteract at least the most vivid flaws of globalization processes are not excluded. This brings up the question about a subject or subjects of such attempts. The populist movement claims an actor’s role. Yet there are doubts that it is able to play this role. At the same time, the civil society now takes on greater and greater importance in the sequence of events. Quite possibly, not only a national civil society could seriously contribute to reforming of globalization processes, but a gradually shaping global civil society using modern communication media as well. The experience tells us also that, first of all, consideration for and harmonization of national interests should become a direction of reforming, which means not only a complicated system of agreements between nation states and their associations, but gradual and far-reaching improvement of global governance institutions. However, the global civil society is hardly homogenious, and given the vast variety, heterogeneity and contradictions of national interests, the task of harmonization appears to be extremely difficult.

An Analysis of the Anti-socialist Nature of Neo-liberalism

ABSTRACTNeo-liberalism, the intellectual child of Friedrich von Hayek, has represented an anti-historical trend ever since its beginnings in the 1920s and 1930s. Espousing privatization, marketization and liberalization as their core ideas, the members of the Hayek group have consistently advocated against socialism. Since the 1980s, neo-liberalism has been transformed into a theoretical weapon of US and British international monopoly finance capital as the latter has sought to impose its global hegemony, stifling socialist movements in capitalist countries and promoting the peaceful evolution of the socialist countries toward capitalism. For more than 30 years, the Western countries have never stopped using neo-liberalism as they attempt to disrupt and misdirect China’s reform and opening up. We must continue to study and criticize neo-liberalism in depth, and must ensure the healthy development of China’s reform, opening up and modernization along the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Citizen Fox: The Global Antitrust Vision of Eleanor Fox

This chapter will examine the growth of Professor Eleanor Fox’s global and cosmopolitan vision for the future of competition policy. Over her illustrious career, Professor Fox’s scholarship traces an arc that began with the battle for the soul of U.S. antitrust law as the Chicago School’s influence began to dominate the discourse, enforcement policy, and eventually the case law. At the same time, Professor Fox also participated in the vigorous debate over the extraterritorial application of U.S. law to international cartels, monopolies, and mergers. Perhaps as a result of the changes in U.S. antitrust law, Professor Fox became a prominent voice in analyzing EU competition law and explaining that system to U.S. and international audiences as the influence of the U.S. as the antitrust hegemon began to wane. EU competition law was a natural focus for her scholarship, given its more complete vision of competition law in numerous important ways that fascinated Professor Fox. In more recent times, Professor Fox has also focused on the proper level of governance for competition policy in a globalized economy. She has focused on issues of gaps, legitimacy, and sufficiency to argue that global problems deserve, and require, global solutions. Depending on the specific issue, she has argued for the use of true international instruments and institutions ranging from international codes, WTO rules for competition policy, cooperation, harmonization, technical assistance, world restatements, as well as other hard law and soft law solutions, to solve the familiar problems of national competition law being used to regulate global markets. What most distinguishes Professor Fox from most other scholars in the field is her cosmopolitanism, a willingness to look at competition issues through the lens of global welfare not tied to individual citizenship. While often controversial, this perspective has allowed Professor Fox to find creative solutions for historically intractable problems and maintain an unwavering moral compass in addressing competition policy as a means to address poverty, democracy, and economic justice for the have nots in the global economy. We salute these accomplishments and conclude by speculating on the future and the promise as well as the obstacles for the implementation of Professor Fox’s global vision.

Political Cataclysms at the Start of the Century and the Future of the International Relations System

Abstract: Crises in Ukraine and the Middle East indicate the existence of deep shifts in the global international relations system. These shifts are much more serious than the widely discussed erosion of the US international monopoly and are related to the global transfer of the world economic and political power center from North Atlantic to the Pacific Basin. Thus quickly collapsing is the world Eurocentric system that has ruled the world since the end of the Fifteenth century. Meanwhile, the Western, and especially the European elites refuse to recognize the scale and the potential consequences of these processes. In particular, their actions are pushing Russia towards China. Retaining stability of the international system would require the recognition by the Global North of the reality of these changes, the return to the acceptance of the state sovereignty concept, and the abandonment of attempts to impose its will on the others under.

Monopoly versus Competition in Setting Accounting Standards

Financial accounting standards are set by organizations granted a significant degree of monopoly power by various governments. While there has been considerable debate on the merits of national (e.g., US FASB) versus international (IASB) monopolies, little attention has been paid to the merits of using competing standard setting organizations (SSOs) for setting accounting standards. We compare the standard setting processes of the FASB/IASB to the processes of four technology-oriented SSOs to assess the role of competition. We also provide a case study of monopoly and competitive standards in telephony. Both telephony and accounting yield some gains from coordination, and similar arguments are used (under the labels of comparability and consistency of accounting) in debates about granting a monopoly to their respective SSOs. Our results show that a group of volunteers competing with the government-sanctioned monopoly of International Telecommunications Union transformed the telephone industry. Thanks to this standards competition, we enjoy free video internet calling and massive cost savings. Implications for accounting standard setting are discussed.

El capitalismo neoliberal en los albores del siglo XXI. La nueva economía mundial

El autor retoma las ideas sobre la teoría y la realidad de la nueva economía mundial, dominada por fenómenos derivados de un capitalismo neoliberal que trata de integrar diversos conceptos que el autor refuta por considerarlos anticientíficos y justificativos del nuevo orden neoliberal. Se discute sobre el verdadero significado de globalización, interdependencia, libre comercio, nueva división internacional de trabajo y automatización. La tesis central plantea que no son avances teóricos para explicar los fenómenos de la economía contemporánea, pues son conceptos creados por los monopolios internacionales para actuar con plena libertad, sin intromisiones del Estado y sin nacionalismos que los limiten

On Capturing Rent from a Non-renewable Resource International Monopoly: Prices Versus Quantities

In this paper we model the case of an international non-renewable resource monopolist as a dynamic game between a monopolist and n importing countries governments, and investigate whether a tariff on resource imports can be advantageous for consumers in importing countries. We analyse both the case of a price-setting monopolist and the case of a quantity-setting monopolist. We find that a tariff is advantageous for consumers, even when there is no commitment to the trade policy and importing countries do not coordinate their policies. Using a numerical example, we find that a tariff is more advantageous for the importing countries if the monopolist chooses the quantity instead of the price and that the optimal temporal path when the monopolist chooses the price is consistently below the optimal temporal path when the monopolist chooses the quantity for the entire period of exploitation of the resource. Nevertheless, the variation in total welfare between the two regimens is small.

FAILURE OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE TURKISH STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: THE REGULATION PROCESS OF MEDIA

Civil society, a paradoxical term, has always been an issue of debate for the political thinkers who have been discussing the term for centuries. In this study, it is claimed that civil society in Turkey has not been in a proliferating position. The primary concern of the study is the extremely narrow space allowed for the activities of civil society without the state\'s supervision and the role of the media within the frontiers of that space which are drawn by the state itself along with the gigantic international and national monopolies. There has been serious debate over the civil society and its regulation by the intervention of the state. Thus, this reality has experienced sharp criticism and opposition. The Turkish state has been insistent while controlling civil society and thus, there is a similar appearance with the West regarding the prominent relationship: the state versus media. Civil society in Turkey has been strapped by governmental chains and civil liberties have been jeopardized. In brief, the control and the regulation of civil society have been detrimental to democracy and unfortunately, the Turkish media has had its part while being conquered by the global monopolies

International Income Transfer under Imperfect Competition

AbstractThis paper examines the effects of an international income transfer under international monopoly. One of the markets in the donor country is monopolized and there exist two distinct types of agent: monopolist and factor owners. The transfer is provided by the agents with different lump sum tax (burden‐share) rates. The burden‐share rate plays a key role concerning the welfare effects of a transfer. We show that the government of the donor country can raise both its social welfare and the wellbeing of the recipient country by providing a further transfer and by simultaneously adjusting the burden‐share rates.

Industry-Sponsored Research: Author's Reply

In his letter [1] Dr. Mansfield has raised a debatable issue: “If the CRC [Collegiate Research Council] is a single international monopoly how could the risk of corruption and inefficiency be managed?” By no means would the CRC be an international monopoly; in the proposal it was stated that the CRC would be certified by the appropriate health authorities of any country. Moreover, several CRCs could be established, as long as the participants were nominated by prestigious academic institutions and the CRC was certified by the federal regulatory agencies. The risk of corruption and inefficiency would be remote for the following reasons. The constituents of the CRC would be distinguished scholars, appointed independently by leading medical institutions and universities. Contrary to Dr. Mansfield's and Dr. Prabhakar's fears [1,2], this council would not require a substantial infrastructure, since its main goal would be to meet periodically, to select the investigators and institutions that would conduct the clinical protocol submitted during that period, and to review the results generated by previous trials. This task could be expedited through the peer review method. The administrative implementation necessary to carry out the decisions of the CRC might be done by existing institutions (e.g., the US Food and Drug Administration), without the formation of an additional bureaucratic body. In this way, the CRC would be strictly maintained as an academic and scientific core whose opinions and sanctions were respected by the individuals and institutions involved in the execution of any given protocol of drug testing. The CRC would not have “bureaucratic bodies,” as it would function only as a collegiate board to select who would do the testing and where a given protocol of drug testing would be conducted. The research funds provided by the pharmaceutical company would not be administered by the CRC, but by the corresponding institution in charge of the specific research or by the administrators appointed by the CRC. To the question of who would fund the CRC the answer is simple: a very small percentage of the total cost of the protocol would be used to create a fund to cover travel expenses and stipends for the scholars participating in the CRC. In response to the statement that the CRC “will consume significant amounts of time and human resources” [2], I do not see why this should be the case. I believe that the members of the CRC could meet once or twice a month and propose, in a single day, one or various candidates for a given protocol. The operation of the CRC would be somewhat similar to that of the editorial board of scientific journals who meet periodically to select reviewers for scientific papers and to evaluate the results of reviews. Once the scholars of the CRC had selected the potential investigators or institutions they would be invited to conduct the research; this task could be accomplished by commissioned personnel independent from the regulatory agency. With regard to the prices of drugs, I think that Dr. Prabhakar has not chosen a comparable example. In fact, hospital charges and physicians' consultations are not controlled in most countries; that is because these prices are usually set—very much as for many other services and goods—by production costs and competition. As mentioned in my proposal, this is not the case for pharmaceutical substances.

Industry-Sponsored Research: A More Comprehensive Alternative

Julio Sotelo's proposal for pharmaceutical research to be organised by a Collegiate Research Council (CRC) funded by drug companies [1] is one of several alternatives that deserve debate [2]. The Sotelo proposal has advantages, but if the CRC is a single international monopoly how could the risk of corruption and inefficiency be managed? Alternatively, if there were competing CRCs, they would be under pressure to compromise to win more contracts, as happens already with contract research organisations. Fiona Godlee has proposed that pharmaceutical manufacturers be banned from researching their products [3]. She suggests that “to get their products licensed [drug companies] would contribute to a central pot for independent, publicly funded clinical trials.” She did not specify what percentage of the “central pot” would be funded by taxpayers versus pharmaceutical companies. If the funding was mostly from pharmaceutical companies then her proposal is similar to Sotelo's. If not, how will governments to be persuaded to allocate adequate funds? My organisation, Healthy Skepticism Inc., advocates a more comprehensive alternative that will also reduce the harms currently caused by misleading promotion, biased industry funding of education, and high drug prices. Our alternative is politically achievable because implementation can be achieved without increasing costs for pharmaceuticals currently paid by individuals and/or third party payers (governments or insurance companies) whilst securing long-term competitive return on investment for the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies currently have four main functions: manufacturing, research, promotion, and education. Performance of those functions is currently distorted by incentive systems that reward only activities that increase sales of more expensive drugs regardless of the impact on health care. We recommend that these four functions be paid for separately by government agencies via iterative open competitive public tender. This would allow the relevant divisions and subcontractors of pharmaceutical companies to compete with universities and other non-profit organisations for funding to provide each function separately. Incentives can then to be aligned to reward quality performance at each function separately. If a company performed poorly, e.g., committed research fraud or provided misleading promotion, then it would not get funding for that function in the next tender round. Drug prices would no longer include a premium for research, promotion, and education. Consequently, drug companies would no longer fund those functions from drug sales. Lower prices would make drugs more cost-effective for larger numbers of people. Our recommendations can be implemented quickly or slowly by gradually reducing prices and transferring the savings to organisations that fund research (e.g., the United Kingdom Medical Research Council); education (e.g., medical schools and specialist colleges); and promotion (e.g., Best Practice Advocacy Centre, New Zealand). We also recommend improving regulation of pharmaceutical companies and improving education, incentive systems, and regulation for health professionals[4–7].

On Capturing Rent from a Non-Renewable Resource International Monopoly: A Dynamic Game Approach

In this paper we model the case of an international non-renewable resource monopolist as a dynamic game between a monopolist and n importing countries governments, and we investigate whether a tariff on resource imports can be advantageous for the consumers of the importing countries when the monopolist sets the price and the importing countries governments act in a non-cooperative way. We find that a tariff is advantageous for the consumers even when there is not commitment to the trade policy although the part of the rent that can be reaped by the importing countries decreases substantially with the number of importing countries. The optimality of the tariff in our dynamic game is explained by the fact that through the tariff the governments of the importing countries can influence the dynamics of the accumulated extractions and hence the extraction costs and the evolution of the monopolist price.