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Gordon Tullock's "Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft" is by now widely regarded to be a classic work in public choice. However, like many "classic papers," it was not always so highly regarded. It was rejected at several journals before finding its way to print and arguably took two or three decades to be fully appreciated. This paper discusses developments in the public choice and rent seeking literatures that helped bring Tullock's paper to its status as a classic work in political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital capitalism is guided by the organising principles of digital automation, information processing, and communication. It rests on the consolidation of relations of exploitation of digital labour based on flexibility and generating precarity. It makes profit from user data under conditions of surveillance. What would an alternative paradigm look like? This paper aims to sketch a possible socialist society resting on digital technology but organised on a different logic, namely that of autonomous production, leisure, and social engagement. It draws on relevant theories of the Left, evaluates them against the reality of digital capitalism, and suggests structural and user practice alternatives that can pave the way towards a digital/communicative socialism. This paper engages with the works of Czech philosopher Radovan Richta (1924-1983) and Austrian-French philosopher André Gorz (1923-2007). It shows that their ideas on the scientific and technological revolution and post-industrial socialism are highly relevant for the analysis and discussion of digital/communicative socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The market power of monopolies can severely restrict citizens' freedom of choice. In the case of utilities, often portrayed as natural monopolies, such power may result in high prices and unreliable or absent services, especially in marginalized communities such as low-income neighborhoods or remote rural villages. While government regulation has been the traditional remedy to curb natural monopolies' power, in this paper, we address a different solution: monopoly bypassing through collective action. We present two types of monopoly bypassing—partial and complete—through the lens of civic wealth creation (CWC): the generation of social, economic, and communal endowments that benefit communities. Through our analysis of three water and sanitation utility services cases, we demonstrate how CWC is used to catalyze the collective action of engaged citizens to effectively bypass monopoly power. The cases highlight the three stakeholder categories involved in CWC initiatives—communities, enterprises, and regimes of support—and illustrate how they act collectively to provide credible market-based solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion still has a great potential and perhaps even a monopoly on explaining life in terms of meaning and significance. In this paper, we argue that neither the development of science nor scientism poses a threat to religion. We suggest, however, that the political entanglement of religion may be a threat. In this paper, we discuss the paradoxical situation in which the political harm of religion is inextricably linked to its beneficial potential to give meaning and significance to life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prospective authors are requested to submit new, unpublished manuscripts for inclusion in the upcoming event described in this call for papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kuwaiti policymaker has never overlooked the protection of market competition. Anticompetitive practices have always been a concern in Kuwait; from the Kuwaiti Constitution 1962, which allows a legal monopoly for a certain time, and the Commercial Law Act 68/1980, to the Competition Protection Acts (CPA) of 2007 and 2020. However, the legislative responses to anticompetitive behaviours in Kuwait have varied, with criminal prohibition being historically dominant. Recently, with the introduction of the CPA 2020, Kuwait has decriminalized cartel activity. Although it may have been expected that the criminal nature of cartel activity should have been maintained, the major shift in Kuwait was contrary to the global trend towards criminalization. Cartel activity is now being dealt with within a regulatory framework, with only administrative sanctions. This paper suggests that the decriminalization in Kuwait weakens the argument that the global trend towards criminalizing cartel activity has always been driven by a top-down process. This paper has three aims: the first is to explore this inadvertently 'neglected' research area in Kuwait; the second is to discuss why cartel activity has been decriminalized, with a focus on the problem of 'moral ambiguity' as an explanation; and the third is to argue for the re-criminalization of cartel activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation that characterized by big data and artificial intelligence has brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges for enterprise developing. Thus, the possible economic impact and consequences of enterprise digital transformation on the enterprise itself, industry development, and economic operation have become a key topic of concern for governments and scholars. This paper theoretically illustrates the role of digital transformation in breaking industry and regional monopolies based on the concept of enterprise digital transformation. Using data of management discussion and analysis word frequencies of Chinese listed companies from 2009 to 2019, this paper identifies the intensity of digital transformation at the firm level and empirically tests the theoretical hypotheses. The study finds that corporate digital transformation significantly improves firm performance and be beneficial for breaking industry and regional monopolies. The further mechanism studying finds that corporate digital transformation significantly increases the innovation input and output of enterprises through the innovation effect, which ultimately promotes the improvement of corporate performance and facilitates the leapfrog development of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual property is, from the perspective of economic theory, quite a stand-out. It retains the meritocratic particularities of material property – and, as such, advocating for its validity seems justified to many on the grounds that it helps the economic agent appropriate the benefits of his (in this case, intellectual) labour, while also being, in and of itself, immune to the scarcity which is inherent to "standard", material property and, therefore, to the so-called "natural laws" governing most laissez-faire moral convictions, seeming to be a rather positive construction instead. Such a peculiar set of attributes is bound to make this concept sensitive to both intellectual differences among its "scientific undertakers" and applicative disturbances. If the praxeological approach of some Austrian School economists, like Stephan Kinsella, renders intellectual property a monopolistic obstacle in the way of proper free market development, other advocates of laissez-faire economics, such as Ayn Rand, fully embrace the notion and even consider it the only valid form of private property in existence (material property being nothing more than one of its sub-categories). This paper features an exclusively theoretical, non-empirical methodological approach, its aim being to analyse the way in which three key psychoanalytical issues of "reflexivisation", present (also) in the field of economics, affect the concept of intellectual property. These issues are as follows: 1. How the economic agents who directly relate their (intellectual) activity to this concept risk altering some / all of the significance of its interpretative functions; 2. How the "grey area" specific to most "human rights" prevents the proper use of intellectual property rights and fuels the rhetoric used by its opponents; and 3. How some of the theoretical approaches advocating for / being against this concept are unknowingly driven by what psychoanalysis refers to as either neurosis (in the case of its advocates) or psychosis (mostly in the case of its opponents). The aimed result of this research is to provide a proper economic interpretation of the way in which the theoretical conceptual evolution of intellectual property may be affected by its very own "reflexivisation". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the monopoly regulation literature with the Bayesian approach. The literature builds on Baron and Myerson's seminal 1982 paper, entitled "Regulating a Monopolist with Unknown Costs." After presenting their contributions to the regulation literature, the paper discusses the main criticisms of their model, relating to either informational or commitment assumptions about the Bayesian regulator. The paper also briefly reviews some non-Bayesian incentive schemes, price-cap regulation, and several extensions and applications of Baron and Myerson's regulatory model to highlight the evolution and scope of the new economics of regulation after 40 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As big tech companies are entering new industrial sectors, an open question concerns the drivers of their expansionary strategies. This paper proposes that these companies are currently entering sectors based on their data-driven intellectual monopoly power, thereby complementing the preliminary answer provided by political economy research which has argued that expansion is driven by their infrastructural power. This approach is developed through a historical analysis of tech giants as companies that systematically turn knowledge and data into intangible assets, showing their expansionary strategies in the healthcare sector to be mainly driven by insights obtained from those intangible assets (a monopolized intangibles driver) and by a quest for conquering new knowledge and data to perpetuate their intellectual monopolies (an intangibles prospecting driver). The paper further illustrates its arguments through a case study of Google's expansionary strategy and its prioritized incursion into healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper finds qualified support for the use of Skarbek's (2011, 2014) governance theory to understand the emergence of prison gang-like groups in Kyrgyzstan, Northern Ireland and Brazil. However, Skarbek's (2011, 2014) governance theory has little to say about how many prison gangs emerge and how they organise comparatively outside the US context. This paper argues that variation in the number of gangs and their monopolization of informal governance can only be explained by considering importation and deprivation theories alongside governance theories. These theories factor in variation in prison environments and pre-existing societal divisions imported into prison, which affect the costs on information transmission and incentives for gang expansion. In particular, the paper pays attention to the wider role social and political processes play in influencing whether monopoly power by prison gangs is supported and legitimized or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retailers managing both online and offline channels have to decide whether to adopt the uniform (i.e., charging the same price online and offline) or dual (i.e., charging different prices online and offline) pricing strategy. This decision is made even more challenging as consumers are increasingly multirooming as they may search offline and then purchase online (showrooming) or the other way around (webrooming). In this paper, we develop an analytical model to examine such a decision. The model takes into consideration (1) consumers' uncertainty about digital and nondigital product attributes, (2) consumers' costs of showrooming as well as webrooming, and (3) the prevalence of costly product return. We show that uniform pricing can be optimal for a monopoly retailer even though consumers have different costs for shopping online versus offline and there is no intrinsic disutility against price discrimination by consumers. In addition, when the uniform price is optimal, it can be lower than both the offline and online prices under optimal dual pricing. This is because, compared with dual pricing, uniform pricing eliminates consumers' uncertainty about the offline store's price so that they are more likely to search the nondigital attribute at the offline store and buy the fitted product. Moreover, a relatively higher online price has to be used under dual pricing to encourage consumers to search offline for the purpose of reducing the product return costs. This paper was accepted by Dmitri Kuksov, marketing. Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 71922008, 71972043, 72025102, and 72091211] and the Sci-Tech Innovation Foundation of School of Management at Fudan University [Grant 20210202]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4849. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing insights provided by the theory of monopolistic markets in economics and Great Power behaviour in the discipline of international relations, this paper aims to provide an alternative understanding of India's refusal to join the BRI beyond the immediate bilateral security, domestic politics, and economic considerations in Sino-Indian relations. We argue that BRI is an effort by China to position itself as the leading firm in the market for international development – a space for long dominated by Western development providers. The paper argues that India's efforts to contest the BRI can be seen as a natural outcome of other rising powers resisting China's efforts to monopolize the development market. In doing so, it provides a template of why rising powers compete with each other in providing developmental aid even when cooperation may create mutual benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has a long history of privately owned utility price regulation, one that is little known. This price control was designed to restrain the market power of several utilities (gas, rail, tramways, electricity, and water). The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to establish what types of price control that were used in Australia in the utilities sector before the First World War and to determine the degree to which this price control influenced efficiency. As price levels in this era were set in legislation, the lack of flexibility led to less-than-optimal outcomes, and eventually and led to new approaches were developed after 1912 to the utilities that remained in private ownership, and in some cases influenced the movement in Australia towards government control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article challenges Karabacek's and Grohmann's classic thesis that the Abbāsid state maintained a monopoly over all Egyptian papyrus production. As demonstrated here, there is no evidence for state monopoly. Documents show that the Abbāsids maintained a contract with Egyptian papyrus producers which secured a high price for the producers in return for the best quality papyrus. There is neither evidence nor reason to believe that this contract was forced on the manufacturers by the government. Another free market provided lower quality papyrus at lower prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade in commercial services is large and is growing as fast as merchandise trade. The liberalization of service sector activity, often characterized hitherto by incumbent monopolies, can produce major welfare gains. Reaching multilateral agreement in liberalizing services runs into problems of definition and quantification. The General Agreement on Trade in Services, though complex and partial in its coverage, has highlighted the importance of multilateral commitment in the pursuit of domestic reform. The agreement on basic telecommunications in particular has had a catalytic effect on domestic policy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb is the property of Fachmedien Otto Schmidt KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Anecdotes abound regarding the decline of basic research in industrial and governmental settings, but very little empirical evidence exists about the phenomenon. This article provides a systematic and historical analysis of the contribution of various institutional sectors to knowledge production at the world and country levels across the past four decades. It highlights a dramatic decline in the diffusion of basic research by industrial and governmental sectors across all countries—with a corresponding increase in the share from universities—as well as an increase of partnerships between universities and other sectors. Results also shows an increase in the relative share of industries in applied research, as measured through patents. Such divergence in university and industry research activities may hinder industries’ ability to translate basic knowledge into technological innovation, and could lead to a growing misalignment between doctoral training and future job expectations. Industries and universities must rethink strategies for partnerships and publishing to maximize scientific progress and to ensure the greatest gains for society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there have been many voices in Korea arguing that a few commercially successful films take up the opportunities for the exhibition of other films and thus limit the selection of titles available for moviegoers, a trend dubbed the "screen monopoly". In seeking a solution, a number of scholars have looked to the anti-screen monopoly "regulations" in France, but without providing rigorous or persuasive evidence. By comparing the appropriate variables of Korea and France, this paper argues that the Korean film market is less monopolised than France despite the non-existence of these regulations. Furthermore, it demonstrates that Korea has more diversity than France. As a result, this paper concludes that introducing the French anti-screen monopoly regulations in Korea does not seem a beneficial option. The findings in this paper suggest a strong need to re-examine the effectiveness of government policies in the cultural industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the potential consumer savings to U.S. home broadband consumers in cable modem monopoly markets, should fixed wireless access technologies become available as a competitive alternative. We use a Choice-Based Conjoint survey and Hierarchical Bayes estimation to calculate the proportion of home broadband consumers that would switch to a fixed wireless access option if it was made available in a cable modem monopoly market. We then utilize a monopoly pricing model to estimate the downward pricing pressure this competition would place on incumbent cable modem monopoly prices. We find that fixed wireless entry at current prices would convert 18 percent of cable-only households and lead to a 37 percent reduction in the price of cable modem service. We also find entry into non-monopoly markets where a fiber-optic broadband alternative already exists, and find muted conversion rates and price reductions. Our results indicate that the deployment of fixed-wireless access would generate substantial consumer savings in cable modem monopoly markets, which constitute 30 precent all cable modem subscribers in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]