Monopolistic Power Research Articles

The Effects of Market Monopolies on Consumer Welfare and Economic Efficiency

Using both theoretical and empirical analysis, this study offers a thorough examination of how market monopolies affect consumer welfare and economic efficiency. The study sheds light on the ways in which monopolistic enterprises sustain their market dominance by analyzing how monopolies function. These tactics include taking advantage of entry hurdles, exercising control over crucial resources, and implementing strategies such as price discrimination. According to the research, because there is no competition, monopolies not only drive up costs but also limit consumer choice, lower the quality of their products, and stifle innovation. Due to these monopolistic actions, there are inefficiencies in the market, especially when it comes to the distribution of resources, which makes businesses less inventive and productive and ultimately contributes to a general stagnation in the economy. The role of legal frameworks like antitrust laws, which are intended to prevent monopolistic behavior, is also evaluated in this research. It criticizes current laws, pointing out that they frequently fail to keep up with changing market circumstances, especially in sectors like technology and telecommunications. In order to remedy these deficiencies, the paper suggests a number of policy measures, such as stepping up antitrust enforcement, lowering obstacles to new businesses entering the market, and liberalizing the market to create an atmosphere that is more competitive. It also promotes updating regulatory frameworks to deal with digital monopolies and quickly evolving global markets in a way that prioritizes consumer welfare and restores economic efficiency. By taking these steps, the study highlights how crucial it is to reduce monopolistic power in order to foster innovation, long-term economic growth, and consumer safety.

Webtoons, Desperately Seeking Viewers: Interactive Creativity in Social Media Platforms and Cultural Appropriation of Global Media Production

Webtoons optimize interactivity and participation of media users in the world of digital media by consolidating a unique digital culture. This article examines the role of users in interactive media by exploring the case of webtoons in the context of a changing global political economy and cultural dominance. Korean platform monopolies have established a new business model for webtoons and developed it as a center of Korean creative power. While webtoons have increasingly expanded and attracted the global market and the global audience, some persistent social issues remain, including the precarious labor structure, monopolistic power in the industry, and ideological dominance in content. Although webtoon viewers are often recognized as cultural intermediaries and powerful agents for their contributions to interactive creativity, their role has fluctuated according to changing political-economic structures and industrial strategies. In the course of expanding to the global market and to new business areas such as intellectual property (IP), webtoons have evolved in new fashions while disclosing the ambivalent nature of participatory media and digital interactivity. This article elucidates the double faces of interactive creativity focusing on viewers’ participation in webtoon production in the context of changing webtoon industry and growing partnership with global media.

Anti-trust law, financing advantage and common prosperity within firms

The Anti-trust Law, which embodies the principles of an "active government" and an "efficient market", plays a significant role in shaping the initial income distribution of enterprises and realizing common prosperity. Based on the Chinese A-share listed firms, this study reveals that enforcing the Anti-trust Law impacts labour income, labour income share, and the income disparity within firms with higher monopolistic power. The improvement is primarily due to the Anti-trust Law's influence on the composition of factors, resulting in a more equitable and competitive market environment for debt and equity, reducing the financing advantage enjoyed by highly monopolistic enterprises.

Strategic management of intellectual property for technology as an object of civil law relations

Strategic management of intellectual property for technology as an object of civil law relations

Уніфікація показників для контролю за різними формами монопольної влади

The paper demonstrates the necessity and possibility to unify the controlling indicators for different types of monopoly (monopolistic competition, oligopoly, natural monopoly) in order to increase efficiency of the monopoly control. Especially this concerns the complex types of monopoly from the point of view of its control, for example, oligopoly. The complexity of this type of monopoly control is associated with the actual inevitability of the appearance of tacit pricing coordination among the oligopoly participants. And the problem is not so much in admitting that the very fact of such a coordination is difficult to prove as in defining the harm it causes to the market and the entire economy. This paper shows the possibility to use the quantitative indexes of monopoly control proposed based on author’s CMI-model of macroeconomic dynamics, to apply these indexes for various types of monopoly. A distinctive feature of this model is the possibility to calculate the vector of “natural” prices for any sector (i.e., the prices that correspond to the state of perfect competition even if it is impossible to reach this state in the existing markets). And the comparison of the actual market price with the “natural” one allows us to control a monopoly using the price indexes alone. In turn, it allows us to perform a monopoly control at various hierarchical levels of the economic system (a firm, an economic sector and economy as a whole). Such a control enables us to calculate the degrees of the monopoly impact both on the entire economy, and on its various sectors. Quantitative values of these degrees can be used as evidence in antitrust litigations and for choice of corresponding instruments to “punish” the monopoly for such abuses. The paper reveals the mechanism of use of the proposed formulas for determination of the monopolistic power and degree of its impact on economy and various economic sectors for the cases of oligopoly and natural monopoly. Also, this paper demonstrates the mechanism of the influence of antimonopoly policy on the configuration of business cycle and on economic growth rate (when other policies are neutral). This opens up the possibility to combine the antitrust policy with the anticyclical and fiscal ones, because, under recession, increased monopolistic power in an individual sector may help the whole economy get out of the crisis.

Can central banks be heard over the sound of gunfire?

AbstractIn this study, we examined the effectiveness of central bank communications during times of significant adverse shocks. Specifically, we examined how the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) regulated foreign exchange (FX) markets during the Russo‐Ukrainian War in 2022. Data collected from both the black and authorized FX markets suggested that the content of the NBU's announcements significantly impacted FX market agents. Announcements aimed at maintaining a fixed (floating) FX rate prompted an increase (decrease) in the black market premium in cash transactions. Moreover, the NBU's announcements influenced the sale side of foreign currency more than any other aspect, an area where the black market FX traders held near monopolistic power.

Globe: The Potential Costs Of Cooperation

This article argues that the fact that the 2021 global tax deal (focusing on Pillar 2) is cooperative is not in itself proof of the deal being beneficial (and certainly not equally beneficial) for all parties. Developing countries particularly may benefit less and possibly even lose from the agreement. The article focuses on two features of cooperation that may tilt the playing field in favour of developed countries: agenda influence and structural incentives to cooperate. Since the OECD had control over both the agenda and the ways in which the game was structured, it is not surprising that the deal served the interests of its members. Moreover, the mechanism of Pillar 2 encourages participation and discourages future defection. In the current stage of the international tax regime, this is considered a virtue. However, it might also harbour future risks such as lock-in and cartelistic effects that might benefit the leaders of this initiative (the OECD in this case) at the expense of others. Moreover, the current regime grants significant power to those with their hands on the steering wheel. Such power could be used to disadvantage others. In the absence of mechanisms that would curtail the monopolistic power of the former, other countries risk paying excessive prices to belong in this regime. GLoBE, Pillar II, International Tax, Cooperation, OECD, Developing Countries, Agenda Influence, Incentives to cooperate, Lock-in, Cartels

Tacitus’ Critique of Republicanism in His Germania

Abstract Although Tacitus began his writing career during the Principate at the end of the first century CE, the dominant approach to thinking about political life was still guided by Republicanism, a constellation of concepts from the mid-first century BCE Roman Republic. Republicanism held that there was only one type of monarchy and that it necessarily precluded libertas. Tacitus, who was living under different iterations of monopolistic power in the Principate, questions this tenet by examining various Germanic tribes. The Germania explores different types of monarchical arrangements, showing that monarchy is not a one-size-fits-all form and that there are significant political differences among the Germanic monarchies, some of which preserve libertas. In this examination, he highlights the inapplicability of Republicanism to a system as dynamic as the Principate.

A. G. PAPANDREOU’S ACADEMIC ECONOMIC THOUGHT 1943–1963

The aim of this article is to make an overall assessment of Andreas George Papandreou’s theoretical contributions during his American academic career, from the perspective of the history of economic thought. Papandreou contributed to the postwar development of economic thought in competition theory and experimental testing of consumer theory. In developing competition theory, he introduced a new method of evaluating the monopolistic power of a firm through a coefficient measuring the firm’s penetration in the market. Furthermore, he suggested a way of experimentally testing whether individual preferences satisfy the axiom of transitivity. He actively participated in the methodological controversies on the realisticness of economic assumptions that took place between 1946 and 1953, and on the empirical meaning of economics in 1963, between Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, Fritz Machlup, Herbert Simon, and others.

Athlete Perceptions of Governance-Related Issues to Sexual Abuse in Sport

Cases of abuse in sport have emerged with frightening regularity over the past two decades. Scholarship has identified risk factors that can help facilitate abuse in sport and has explored athletes’ experiences with sexual abuse. However, less is known about athletes’ perceptions of the systematic organizational-level problems that fail to curtail sexual abuse. This article, therefore, explores what athletes believe to be the key issues in governance that facilitate sexual abuse in sport. An analysis of the lawsuits that athletes filed against US sport organizations and the testimonies they provided to the US Congress from 2017 to 2022 show four primary ways in which organizational culture, decisions and policies helped permit misconduct in sport. Athlete perspectives suggest governance issues related to monopolistic power structures, a lack of athlete representation, conflicts of interest, and commercialization facilitated an abuse-prone culture within Olympic and Paralympic sport in the United States. These findings show that athletes feel that the adjudication mechanisms that remain connected to sport bodies do not always curtail abuse.

Does specialization improve firm efficiency? Evidence from the vertical unbundling reform in the Chinese electricity industry

ABSTRACT Many electricity markets in the world have experienced the vertical unbundling where the generation and transmission sectors were separated from a vertically-integrated monopolistic power company. This restructuring could positively impact the productivity of the firms because of intensified competition and enhanced autonomy but could also negatively aect the productivity because of the loss of synergy and scaled economy. By exploiting the vertical unbundling that took place in China in 2003, this study finds that vertical unbundling increased the labour use of the generation firms and the material use of the transmission firms. Additional investigation reveals that generation firms suffer from an efficiency loss in labour use due to the loss of coordination after vertical unbundling and the transmission firms face an increased transaction cost in acquiring material and bear the additional cost transferred from the efficiency loss of the upstream generation firms. Our findings suggest that benefits of vertical unbundling relative to integration critically hinge on the market structure of the industry.

The Hierarchy of Calories? State Intervention, Food Rationing, and Food Smuggling in Occupied Tianjin (1937–1945)

Abstract This article aims to advance the understanding of the wartime food experience in Japanese-occupied Tianjin. We argue that food accessibility in Tianjin was conditioned by one’s position within the collaborationist regime and the depressed marketing system. While the state asserted its monopolistic power over food allocation, determining individuals’ entitlement to grain by their racial identities, occupation, and residency, the flourishing clandestine trade suggested the state’s failure to support its monopolistic claim over the allocation of grain resources. Making distinctions between imposed regulation policies and human practices, this essay attempts to elaborate the process of empire-building from the top down as well as the bottom up.

Should lenders also advise? Evidence from project loans

AbstractBank loans are an important financing component for large‐scale investment projects. To secure loans, firms often enlist the help of a financial advisor (investment bank, boutique firm). Increasingly, large banks offer both advisory and arranging services. This dual role lowers information asymmetry, according to relationship banking, but suggests a potential conflict of interest. We investigate these trade‐offs and their effects for lenders and borrowers. Using a rich database of project‐specific loans and accounting for possible endogeneity, we find that loan spreads, debt levels, and maturities tend to be higher when the arranger also advises. Our results are consistent with relationship banking. Lenders benefit from better information and monopolistic power, whereas borrowers benefit from lower refinancing risk, higher financial flexibility, and a greater likelihood of financing (i.e., greater credit availability).

Effects of an ad valorem Web Tax in a Cournot-Nash market for digital advertising

I extend the theory of tax incidence under Cournot-Nash oligopolistic competition to study the effects of an ad valorem sales tax on Web services that are provided free of charge to users, and produce advertising space sold to businesses. Ads are more valuable to advertisers the more users are served by a Web service. Users have ads-neutral preferences and Web companies compete in a Cournot-Nash fashion on the advertising market but enjoy monopolistic power in the service market they serve. I demonstrate that the equilibrium market price may be reduced by such tax, while ads sold increase. The conditions for such a tax-induced change depend upon the functional form and the elasticity assumed for ads demand.

The commercial viability of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS): what’s in it for existing transport operators, and why should governments intervene?

ABSTRACT Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) offers consumers access to multiple transport modes and services, owned and/or operated by different mobility service providers, through an integrated digital platform for planning, booking and payment. The platform provider needs to negotiate independent deals with different transport operators. Consequently, the success of any MaaS platform will depend on the platform provider’s ability to persuade as many operators as possible to join their platform. This study examines the commercial value proposition of MaaS from the perspective of existing transport operators. We find that MaaS could help strengthen complementary relationships between services, offer operators access to newer customers and larger markets, and help them manage their assets more efficiently. However, integration with substitutive services could undermine operators’ profitability. Moreover, similar benefits could be realised through other information and communication technologies without requiring integration with other services. Consequently, if left to the market, integration between operators is likely to be piecemeal and ad-hoc, and may strengthen monopolistic power of some operators. This, alongside the opportunities that MaaS presents to help achieve broader societal goals, calls for an active role for governments in the development, operation and regulation of MaaS to deliver on the vision of a fully integrated transport system.

Performance Effects of Network Structure and Ownership: The Norwegian Electricity Distribution Sector

Transmission and distribution networks are capital intensive segments of the electricity sector and are generally considered natural monopolies. Due to their non-competitive nature, these are subject to independent regulation to prevent the abuse of monopolistic power and to induce competitive behaviour. Effective economic regulation of the electricity networks has become a key target in most developed economies after the 1980s. In Norway, incentive regulation and efficiency benchmarking were introduced in 1997. In Norway, the electricity grid is divided into three levels, namely, central, regional and distribution networks. In this paper, we study two overlooked aspects when analysing the performance of electricity networks: vertical integration and ownership structure. We use a stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyse the performance of Norwegian electricity distribution utilities for the period 2007–2014. We observe that vertical integration between distribution and regional transmission implies higher cost inefficiencies. This indicates that the efficiency gains due to separate management of the networks exceed the economies of coordination from vertical economies of scope. In addition, we find that council ownership entails higher efficiencies. This could be explained by the state having an interest in high-voltage electricity networks, rather than low-voltage ones, and the decentralised model from which the now centralised system was once developed.

A Theory of Partial Property Rights and the Illusion of State-Owned Enterprises

Abstract China’s State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) enjoy many special benefits. They do not turn over profits and rents to the state, they pay much less interests than other enterprises in their use of capital, they enjoy monopolistic power in the marketplace, incomes of SOE employees, including managers, are free of policy restrictions. Because these substantial interests are not transferrable to individuals, competition exists for them. Compared with executives of private enterprise, senior managers of SOEs are 94 times more likely of being convicted of a crime. High benefits enjoyed by senior managers of SOEs come with a great risk. Once the illusion of SOEs is punctured, SOE leaders with higher education and long-term visions may become the driving force of SOE reform.

The limits of political influence – the limits of creativity: the first 25 years of FAMU

This study deals with the Czechoslovak film school FAMU from its inception until the 1960s. Several specific issues from the history of the institution are selected. The study examines to what extent the establishment of the school was influenced by the Communist Party (which strongly influenced Czechoslovak cultural policy from 1945 before seising monopolistic political power in February 1948) and if the Soviet VGIK was really a model for FAMU, as is sometimes maintained. The second area of interest is the production practice of student films, which the author uses to illustrate the institutional, as well as broader social and political changes in the school during the first 25 years of its existence. Emphasis is placed on topics such as students’ creative freedom (including their occasionally dissenting approaches), formal versus real competencies in the initiation of a film project, approval mechanisms and possible circumvention of the given rules, etc. The study works with those student films that were officially distributed in Czechoslovakia at the time. It is based on original archival and oral history research combined with secondary sources, including commemorative audio-visual works. The study’s methodological approach is rooted in the history of film institutions, production studies, and the political history of film.

PPPs and challenges for competition law and policy in ASEAN

This paper studies the rising roles of private–public partnerships (PPPs) and potential challenges for competition law and policy in ASEAN infrastructures. The PPPs policy is established to serve the need for infrastructure development in ASEAN. Various infrastructure sectors in ASEAN are under the control of monopoly state enterprises. The usage of PPPs policy transforms the monopoly structure ASEAN infrastructure toward more market competition and liberalization. By this, the rise of PPPs is an important factor assisting effective market governance in coherence with the set objective of ASEAN competition law and policy. However, the rise of PPPs can also create difficulties in competition law and policy because private investors under PPPs can assume monopolistic power, which is a challenging issue in reframing competition law and policy for ASEAN infrastructure sectors. The paper presents some challenging concerns on the PPPs and the competition law and policy in ASEAN. Some case studies in ASEAN member countries provided an overview of the challenges. Policy implications are proposed to address the challenges.

Industrial Pricing in Turkish Manufacturing During the Early 2000s: A Post-Keynesian Approach

In this study, the pricing behavior of Turkish manufacturing is analyzed using panel data on 22 sub-sectors for the period from 2004 to 2015. The empirical findings of the study largely support the post-Keynesian hypothesis, in that the monopolistic power and non-wage costs of the sectors have a strong relationship with prices. However, one notable finding is that contrary to theoretical expectations, a statistically significant relationship between industrial prices and wage costs could not be determined. This finding implies that labor is not a serious cost element and can be interpreted as reflecting the pressure and flexibility policies established on labor when the neoliberal transformation is gaining momentum. Further, strong statistical evidence supports the validity of markup pricing in the oligopolistic sectors, which appears to have declined after the global financial crisis. Finally, the results indicate that increasing foreign trade openness in those industries with a production structure that is dependent on imported input factors does not appear to discipline markets by suppressing markup rates.