Suchergebnisse

This book studies the international coordination of monetary and fiscal policies in the world economy. It carefully discusses the process of policy competition and the structure of policy cooperation. As to policy competition, the focus is on monetary and fiscal competition between Europe and America. Similarly, as to policy cooperation, the focus is on monetary and fiscal cooperation between Europe and America. The spillover effects of monetary policy are negative while the spillover effects of fiscal policy are positive. The policy targets are price stability and full employment. The policy makers follow either cold-turkey or gradualist strategies. Policy expectations are adaptive or rational. The world economy consists of two, three or more regions.

The traditional school of economic policy analysis predicts that globalisation will give rise to predatory competition between the governments of the European nation states. The consequence is anticipated to be a marked reduction in, if not the destruction of, the benevolent Welfare State. The objective of this contribution is to present the main arguments that have led us to believe that, this traditional literature notwithstanding, a European constitution should not restrict but rather should encourage horizontal and vertical governmental competition. In our view the European political order, in defining the relationship among member states and also the relationship between the member states and the EU, ought to be inspired by what we know about competition in the commercial sphere.

The paper contributes to the globalization debate by scrutinizing the international spillover effects which are provoked if a single country reduces the generosity of the unemployment compensation system or weakens labor union power. For this purpose a two-country model with imperfect competition in goods and labor markets and perfect competition in capital markets is developed. It is demonstrated that the comparative-static results depend on the degree of capital mobility, the degree of competition in the goods market and the institutional setup of the unemployment compensation system. Furthermore, it is shown that the impact of country-specific labor market reforms on households in other countries depends on whether the household's main income source consists of wage income or capital income and profits.

'Strategic Relations' is a concept that has been used extensively in diplomatic and journalistic contexts, but it has been less investigated in scientific studies. Recently, concepts such as 'strategic alliance', 'strategic coalition', 'strategic partnership' and 'strategic competition' has been introduced to use as other forms of 'strategic relationship'. However, the starting point of this study was composed of the following question: what is a strategic relationship and how is the concept related to a strategic alliance, coalition and partnership strategic competition? To answer this question, a descriptive-explanatory study was conducted. The data were collected through desk studies, interviews with experts by Delphi technique and inferential analysis. This study theoretically focused on concepts such as 'cooperation', 'competition' and 'strategy'.

AbstractIn this paper, we study the impacts of cross‐ownership structure on double marginalization problem (DMP) and social welfare under downstream the Bertrand and Cournot competition. We find that in the Bertrand competition, DMP is more serious under backward cross‐ownership than under forward cross‐ownership. Under forward cross‐ownership, because the upstream firm internalizes part of a retailer's profit, it alleviates the DMP. However, for the whole society, forward cross‐ownership is beneficial with respect to backward cross‐ownership. The mark‐up ratio under forward cross‐ownership is the largest, followed by that under vertical separation. The lowest one is under backward cross‐ownership. The results hold under Cournot competition as well.

Abstract
This article explores competition as a technique of social transformation in Amazonia. In recent years, the Shuar of Ecuadorian Amazonia have begun staging festivals to celebrate the unity and autonomy of their new sedentary communities. Festivals include sporting games and beauty pageants that create a positive spirit of competition through dramatization and ranking. In these competitions, the drama and ranking take place within a 'play-frame'—a frame that separates the festival from everyday life, but also re-enacts new practices of commensuration that have become part of daily life via schooling, markets, and electoral politics. If commensuration works against Shuar autonomy, the play-frame of the festival creates future possibilities for autonomy and mutuality.

This paper presents an explanation of the post-positivist conception of sociological science. J. Alexander and P. Colomi implicitly formulated the elements of this conception in a number of their publications. They interpreted sociology as a number of competing theoretical traditions. These traditions consist of two genres: generalized discourse and their contextual research programs. The development of sociology occurs as a result of the competition of theoretical traditions. The existence of these traditions depends on their adaptation and development. Theoretical traditions develop as a result of elaboration, revision, reconstruction and expropriation. The competition of theoretical traditions is complicated by social aberrations in the professional scientific community. The productivity of this competition can provide sociological metatheorizing.

In a high-profile decision of February 6, 2019, the German Federal Cartel Office prohibited Facebook's data collection policy as an abuse of dominance for infringing its users' constitutional right to privacy. The case triggered a remarkable interinstitutional dispute between the key players in German competition law. Conflicting rulings by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and the German Federal Court of Justice further illustrate how deeply divided the antitrust community is on the role of competition law in regulating excessive data collection and other novel types of harm caused by dominant digital platforms. This contribution discusses the original prohibition decision, the ensuing court orders, and legislative reform proposals in the broader context of European Union and U.S. competition law.

Abstract
Antitrust investigations typically focus on the competitive pressures coming from within the defined markets of interest. However, competitive pressures can also come from other markets. Even when individually these markets place only weak constraints on one another, collectively they may matter. A networks approach to modelling competition permits a systemic view of competition that can sometimes paint a more accurate picture. We demonstrate this through some simple examples, and show more generally how tools from the networks literature can be applied to capture competition across a system of interrelated markets. As a leading example, we consider antitrust investigations into supermarkets where local geographic markets have been used as the basis of investigation.

This paper examines whether and how market competition affected the political bias of government-owned newspapers in China from 1981 to 2011. We measure media bias based on coverage of government mouthpiece content ( propaganda) relative to commercial content. We first find that a reform that forced newspaper exits (reduced competition) affected media bias by increasing product specialization, with some papers focusing on propaganda and others on commercial content. Second, lower-level governments produce less-biased content and launch commercial newspapers earlier, eroding higher-level governments' political goals. Third, bottom-up competition intensifies the politico-economic trade-off, leading to product proliferation and less audience exposure to propaganda. (JEL D72, L31, L82, O14, O17, P26, P31)

This article examines the costs of switching that may exist in the European postal sector, where it is carried out an ambitious process of opening to competition since 1997. Inadequate regulation of the access to some elements of postal infrastructure or services within the scope of the universal postal service exists. This article proposes adaptations to ensure transparent and non-discriminatory access conditions to elements of postal infrastructure in line with the sectorial directives aimed at strengthening competition in the long term in the postal market. The proposed adaptations focus on services such as postcode systems, address databases, post office boxes, delivery boxes, re-direction and return to sender services. All of them can help reduce the switching cost and thus strengthen competition.

AbstractThis article explores the role of regulation as a supporting institution for an energy market. Two aspects are examined: first, the role of regulation in promoting a competitive market for the retail supply of energy, and second, the role of regulation in providing access to the transmission and distribution networks, assumed to be monopolies, that provide services for the retail suppliers. UK regulation promoted retail energy competition until 2008, but in that year changed direction, and since then has been restricting retail competition. In contrast, UK regulation since 2008 has encouraged more customer engagement in the network part of the energy sector. This offers the prospect, at least, of the emergence of a form of competition and choice in the process of setting price controls.

This article analyzes the antitrust enforcement practice in Russia (2008–2010) in the area of competition restricting agreements (horizontal and vertical). The analysis is based on courts decisions database (litigations with the Russian competition authority - FAS). Database contains 242 cases, including 139 horizontal agreements, 103 vertical and mixed agreements. On the basis of this database we have analyzed important features of the interpretation and implementation of the competition law in Russian practice, priority areas of the enforcement. We considered the antitrust policy taking into account the risks of errors of 1 and 2 types, including the problem of the flexibility of prohibitions (PER SE vs RULE OF REASON), standards of proof, consistency of enforcement, etc.