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This paper aims to investigate the impact of monopoly power on the world of work within the logistics segment, particularly in the context of automation processes. We conduct a fieldwork analysis of three workplaces situated in Italy, each owned by distinct types of monopolies: a corporate monopoly, Philip Morris, the global leader in tobacco and cigarette production; a state-owned monopoly, Poste Italiane, the exclusive public provider of mail services within the national borders; and a novel form of digital monopoly that holds control over intangibles and exhibits monopsonistic control over labour — Amazon. Through a comparative examination of these three diverse forms of monopolies, utilising corporate-level metrics and patent data, we scrutinise the restructuring of labour processes following the introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles. Employing a qualitative analysis that includes semi-structured interviews with HR professionals, IT specialists, and workers, we underscore that powerful monopolies play a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of technological development, adoption, and utilisation. Despite notable distinctions observed among the three cases, we document a common trend of standardisation and codification of human activities when interfacing with automated machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work analyses the mutual dependence linking digital platforms, i.e., ‘Big Tech’, and the US military apparatus. Three main elements at the roots of such dependence are detected: an ‘originary linkage’ binding the development of digital platforms with governments’ military R&D efforts; the critical nature of infrastructures and technologies controlled by platforms; and their role as their government’s ‘eyes and ears’ (both at home and abroad). Focusing on the US, we first document the growing relevance of these corporations as US Department of Defense contractors. Second, we explore a selection of multi-year contracts entrusting platforms to develop and manage critical technologies and infrastructures for military purposes. Finally, we document the direct involvement of major US-based platforms in war scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2023 Merger Guidelines devote a section to mergers that eliminate potential competition. This is an important contribution because agency guidelines have not discussed the subject in detail for almost 50 years. The new Guidelines follow the traditional distinction that has been upheld in the courts between a merger's effects on incumbent responses to perceived potential competition and the potential effects of actual entry. Antitrust enforcement should assess both possible aspects of potential competition in an integrated fashion because harm from a merger occurs not infrequently from the elimination of actual potential competition; and when the elimination of perceived potential competition has an effect, it often occurs along with and as a consequence of the elimination of actual potential competition. Economic studies suggest that the benefits of perceived potential competition are less than some courts have assumed and that the benefits of actual potential competition are greater. Rather than focusing solely on the probability of harm from the elimination of a potential entrant, antitrust enforcement should adopt a sliding scale that takes into account the magnitude of the benefits for consumers or suppliers if entry is successful. Mergers with potential and nascent competitors can be harmful even if the probability of actual entry absent the merger is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under triopoly and Cournot competition, we study an infinite horizon Markov perfect equilibrium merger game in which in each period one of the firms ("the Buyer") selects a bid price and then the two sellers accept or reject this offer with some probability. The possibility of a "war of attrition" equilibrium in which the seller who outlasts the other is then able to sell in the following period at a greater price, is a distinct feature of the model. Delayed monopolization is all the more likely when the discount factor is small and the ratio duopoly/ triopoly profits is important. Two other equilibria are shown to be possible: an unmerged and an immediate monopolization equilibrium. Each equilibrium is shown to correspond to a different set of parameter values. The two special cases of linear and constant price elastic demand functions are fully characterized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Commission (EC) has recently announced its intention to issue Guidelines on exclusionary abuses. In this paper, we explain how economics can and should be used to inform a sound and effects-based approach in the enforcement of Article 102 TFEU. In particular, the EC should be guided only by a consumer welfare standard; exclusive dealing and exclusivity rebates should be subject to a (rebuttable) presumption of harm; price–cost tests are meaningful only for predation and other practices that do not reference rivals; essentiality of the input should not be a requirement for vertical foreclosure cases of any type, but such cases should be limited only to dominant firms that satisfy certain criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not clear how coherent ordered nanoparticles affect characteristics of FCC⇌HCP martensitic transformation in disordered alloys. In this paper, the precipitations of coherent ordered nanoparticles and their effects on the FCC⇌HCP martensitic transformation were systematically investigated in a solution-treated Co24Ni6Si shape memory alloy. The results showed that both the coherent ordered L12 structured and L11 structured nanoparticles could precipitate even in the solution-treated Co24Ni6Si alloy followed by water quenching. The L12 structured nanoparticles strongly hindered the occurrence of stress-induced HCP martensitic transformation and its reverse transformation, but their hindrance dramatically reduced with the decrease of size when below 1.5 nm. The coherent ordered nanoparticles did not convert the non-thermoelastic FCC⇌HCP martensitic transformation to the thermoelastic ones owing to the absence of group-subgroup relation between the parent phase and martensite. A maximal recovery strain of 6.7 % was obtained after only aging at 1073 K for 1 min. This value was 1∼2 % higher than the reported maximal ones in conventional FeMnSi-based alloys subjected to complicated thermomechanical treatments. The enhanced reversibility of HCP martensitic transformation could account for this larger recovery strain by the ultrafine coherent ordered L12 structured nanoparticles.

The Illumina/Grail and Towercast rulings of July 2022 and March 2023 create new avenues for the control of concentrations below the European Union (EU) and national turnover thresholds. These new avenues concern (i) a referral to the European Commission by a national competition authority (NCA) and (ii) a review under the EU provision on abuse of dominance by an NCA. In both cases, the rationale seems predominantly based on the need to have effective competition law oversight on the so-called killer acquisitions of emerging competitors and undertakings that aim to extend their dominance by acquiring existing (small but) effective or particularly innovative competitors. The obvious drawback of increasing possibilities of the ex-post merger control is that this comes at a cost to legal certainty and the one-stop-shop principle that has characterized the EU merger control so far. Especially the Towercast judgment calls into question the structure, purpose, and merits of merger control in the EU over the past 35 years. Looking forward, much will depend on how the NCAs and the European Commission will use their new-found powers; some reorganization of merger vetting procedures at the national level may be required. However, it appears likely that the system of merger control in the EU will come to focus more sharply on mergers that raise serious competitive concerns and less on providing a system of comprehensive administrative review, based mainly on size. This may also provide opportunities to rationalize the application of public enforcement capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effects of property rights over the use of data on market outcomes. To do so, we consider a model in which a monopolistic firm offers a service to a set of heterogeneous users. The use of the service generates valuable data, but data monetization entails a privacy cost for users. A trade-off emerges between under-processing and over-monetization of data. We show that both the firm and users prefer the users (the firm) to own the rights for low (high) values of data. We further discuss the robustness of our results when allowing more possible contracts for the data owner and show that the main trade-off is robust to these extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For path-breaking insights on how prices can guide the efficient allocation of resources and how innovation and investment can spur economic growth, Adam Smith is justly renowned. He was, however, well aware of problems posed by market dominance—specifically in banking and, more generally, wherever getting to the scale that delivers increasing returns leads to monopolistic behaviour. For the historical record, we draw on the recent wide-ranging survey by Acemoglu and Johnson on how the benefits of innovation have been spread across society since the Industrial Revolution. We also consider these issues in the context of geo-political competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a decision-framing design problem: a principal faces an agent with frame-dependent preferences and designs an extensive form with a frame at each stage. This allows the principal to circumvent incentive compatibility constraints by inducing dynamically inconsistent choices of the sophisticated agent. We show that a vector of contracts can be implemented if and only if it can be implemented using a canonical extensive form, which has a simple high–low–high structure using only three stages and the two highest frames, and employs unchosen decoy contracts to deter deviations. We then turn to the study of optimal contracts in the context of the classic monopolistic screening problem and establish the existence of a canonical optimal mechanism, even though our implementability result does not directly apply. In the presence of naive types, the principal can perfectly screen by cognitive type and extract full surplus from naifs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a time of passionate debate on the fundamental goals of competition law. Should there be a single overarching goal for all competition law and policy? Should that goal be framed in purely economic terms? Should antitrust focus on protecting the competitive process, preventing unfair market conduct, or the abuse of superior bargaining position? Should antitrust promote and protect democracy, address social and racial injustice, or address climate change and sustainability? How should multiple goals be administered, weighed, and traded off in enforcement priorities and litigation? There is a progressive turn in the USA at the moment. But regardless of the nature and direction of the desired change, there is the equally important issue of how to achieve lasting change that survives the inevitable change in enforcement personnel and political leaders over time. In this essay, I focus on how to achieve that lasting change regardless of the goals and direction of change that any particular jurisdiction seeks to adopt. Most of the specific examples come from current developments in the USA, but are illustrative of the process of lasting change in competition. Enforcement agencies are key players in this process, but are constrained by the constitutions, treaties, legislation, and court decisions of their jurisdictions. Any campaign for change therefore depends on the wise use of the full substantive and procedural powers assigned to them by the political branches of the government. Successfully achieving substantial change rarely happens by accident, and most often requires a combination of such factors as: (i) creatively using the full statutory powers assigned to the agencies, (ii) striving for a unified whole-of-government approach to competition policy and (iii) deeply engaging the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This bipartisan perspective had been captured succinctly by Tim Muris, who upon being appointed Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2001 after eight years of a Democratic Administration remarked, '[c]ontinuity will be the norm, with changes at the margins'.[4] No longer. Keywords: New Brandeisian; Antitrust; Federal Trade Commission; Lina Khan; Merger review; Hart-Scott-Rodino Act; K21; K41; K42; L11; L12; L41 EN New Brandeisian Antitrust Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan Merger review Hart-Scott-Rodino Act K21 K41 K42 L11 L12 L41 168 172 5 08/11/23 20230701 NES 230701 Those who follow US antitrust policy from afar often give more importance than is due to asserted changes in policy that have accompanied transitions in Presidential Administrations when one party supplants another. Previously, the FTC, like the Department of Justice (DOJ), litigated most of its merger cases in the federal courts.[18] Now cases increasingly will be tried in the FTC administrative courts. Third, in August, 2021, the FTC announced it would begin issuing 'standard form letters alerting companies that the FTC's investigation remains open and reminding companies that the agency may subsequently determine that the deal was unlawful'. [Extracted from the article]

FTC rule-making The FTC could initiate focused rule-making; eg rules to govern Big Tech conduct that more or less adopt the lists crafted by jurisdictions around the world. 13 I Verizon v Trinko i (n 7). 14 Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act of 2021 (2021-2022). Legislation (except for the most general kind, which we already have in antitrust) is commonly black letter law, more like civil law, while antitrust law is evolutionary through the case-by-case process; heavily fact dependent; an intermixture of fact and law in the course of determining whether specific acts or transactions are anticompetitive. Keywords: Competition law; U.S. Antitrust Law; Consumer welfare; Antitrust reform; Antitrust rules; Neo-Brandeis School; K10; K20; K21; L12; L13; L40-L44; L50; O30 EN Competition law U.S. Antitrust Law Consumer welfare Antitrust reform Antitrust rules Neo-Brandeis School K10 K20 K21 L12 L13 L40-L44 L50 O30 179 184 6 08/11/23 20230701 NES 230701 I. INTRODUCTION The Biden administration has sought to make a big difference in US antitrust law. [Extracted from the article]

The pursuit of the consumer welfare goal has not achieved competitive markets but instead resulted in highly concentrated markets in the digital economy with one or two market leaders. Markets that should be dynamic and innovative are controlled by powerful online platforms that thwart innovation and eliminate potential rivals through killer acquisitions. This article argues that safeguarding innovation and in particular disruptive innovation should play a much more explicit part in the European Commission's merger control especially in digital economy markets, where innovation is key to a healthy dynamic market. This could be achieved by adopting a stricter merger review process that places emphasis on whether innovation and potential competitors are negatively affected by the merger also in the long-run. The article argues that to achieve this a move away from the traditional price-based focus in merger reviews in line with the consumer welfare framework is required towards a structural approach that considers the impact on the market in the long-run and the dynamic aspects of the mergers under review, but this will occasionally require the Commission to say 'no' to mergers. The result however, would be the safeguarding of innovation, the key to a healthy economy in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartels participating in procurement auctions frequently use bid rotation or prioritize incumbents to allocate contracts. However, establishing a link between observed allocation patterns and firm conduct has been difficult: there are cost-based competitive explanations for such patterns. We show that by focusing on auctions in which the winning and losing bids are very close, it is possible to distinguish allocation patterns reflecting cost differences across firms from patterns reflecting non-competitive environments. We apply our tests to two datasets: the sample of Ohio milk auctions studied in Porter and Zona (1999, "Ohio School Milk Markets: An Analysis of Bidding", RAND Journal of Economics , 30 , 263–288), and a sample of municipal procurement auctions from Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a simple theoretical model emphasizing the importance of a multi-sided platform (MSP) in fostering innovation. This model aims to assess the effects of structuring industries around an MSP on innovation dynamics and emphasizes the impact of cross-platform competition. It teaches us how to encourage cross-platform competition in terms of competition policy. The outcome is threefold. To begin, the presence of an MSP is critical for market innovation. Second, our findings indicate that skewed market power in favor of the MSP may stifle innovation in this industry, even if the negative impact on the industry's rate of innovation is not immediately apparent. Finally, we demonstrate that industries with multiple MSPs have a higher rate of innovation. The model's conclusions emphasize the critical importance of preserving the contestability of digital markets through competition rules enforcement. Even if the inherent technical characteristics of this industry result in a situation of dominance, competition rules should aim to preserve the possibility of market competition through, among other things, interoperability requirements, data portability requirements, and control of exclusivity clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research uses the publicly available World Input-Output Database (WIOD) to investigate the relationship between an industry’s markup and its upstreamness, the industry’s position in the vertical chain of production; the research also identifies common attributes among high-markup industrial sectors: higher-markup industries display a higher level of capital compensation and a lower share of labour and other inputs in the value of output. Finally, it is found that upstream industries, those producing mostly raw materials and intermediate products enjoy higher market power than their downstream counterparts. This result could be among the first in the literature to find evidence of double marginalization at an industry level of aggregation. It also suggests that virtually all final product prices may incorporate substantial markups through their inputs.

In this paper, the structural, mechanical, electronic, and thermodynamic properties of Ir 3 TM (TM = Sc, Ti, and V) intermetallic compounds in the cubic (L1 2) and hexagonal (D0 19 and D0 24) phases are presented. The outcomes of the simulation rely on density functional theory (DFT) within the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) generalized gradient approximation (GGA) based on the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) approach. The existing study was performed on the L1 2 cubic phase. in addition to hexagonal D0 24 and D0 19 phases, which may be relative but differ in the way that the atomic layers are stacked. The calculated total, cohesive energy, and heat formation suggest that the Ir 3 Sc compound can be stable in the D0 24 phase because of an overlap between the L1 2 and D0 24 phases with a total energy difference of around 0.026 eV/atom. Ir 3 Ti and Ir 3 V are more stable in L1 2 and D0 19 , respectively. From elastic constants calculations, it reveals that the studied compounds are mechanically stable and harder in the cubic phase than hexagonal phase. However, Ir 3 Sc has the lowest hardness due to its relative ductility. Inversely, Ir 3 V has the maximum hardness with a lack of ductility. It was observed that these compounds have an elastic anisotropy based on the three-dimensional Young's modulus surface, and Ir 3 Sc has the strongest anisotropy, while Ir 3 V has the weakest in the L1 2 phase. The total density of state (TDOS) calculations shows that Ir 3 Ti and Ir 3 V are stable in the L1 2 and D0 19 phases, respectively, except for the Ir3Sc compound which might undergo a martensitic transition. Also, the pseudogap for Ir 3 V moves quite close to the Fermi level, indicating that the covalent bonding in this compound is sharper than the other compounds. Moreover, via the quasi-harmonic Debye model within the Gibbs computational code, thermodynamic properties are calculated and analyzed with temperature and pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]