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Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The major network carriers dominate traffic at most of their large hubs and extensive evidence exists that fares in markets where competition is absent are consistently above competitive levels. GAO believes that the oversight scheme contemplated when the industry was deregulated--with antitrust enforcement by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and oversight of unfair trade practices by the Department of Transportation (DOT)--has not been entirely successful in preserving and ensuring competition. Although the current legislative scheme grants explicit authority for DOT to regulate unfair competitive practices, the legislation does give DOT substantial leeway on the scope of its action. Thus, with the range of competitive challenges confronting the industry and directly affecting consumers, especially in the face of unprecedented industry consolidation, GAO believes there is merit in the overall intent of the proposed Aviation Competition Restoration Act to direct DOT to actively monitor the state of competition in the industry and to institute remedial actions as appropriate."

Warlords compete for turf that provides them with rents and 'taxable' resources but they can also offer a semblance of security within their respective territories. This article first examines two economic models of warlord competition. Because such competition takes place through the use of force or the threat of the use of force, more competition typically leads to lower material welfare as resources are wasted on unproductive arming and fighting. This is in contrast to ordinary economic models, in which typically greater competition leads to higher material welfare. Furthermore, rents from oil, diamonds, and even foreign aid crowd out production. In extreme cases this crowding out of ordinary production can be complete, whereby all economic resources can be devoted to the unproductive competition for rents. The article then reviews factors that lead either to actual war or to peace in the shadow of war. Because war is destrucrive, human beings are typically risk averse, and there exist numerous complementarities in production and consumption, we can expect peace in the shadow of war to be most often preferable by all parties. Actual war can take place because of incomplete information about the preferences and capabilities of the adversaries but also, somewhat surprisingly, when the shadow of the future is long.

Theoretical models based on the assumption that telecommunications is a natural monopoly no longer reflect reality. As a result, policymakers often lack the guidance of economic theorists. Competition in Telecommunications is written in a style accessible to managers, consultants, government officials, and others. Jean-Jacques Laffont and Jean Tirole analyse regulatory reform and the emergence of competition in network industries using the state-of-the-art theoretical tools of industrial organisation, political economy, and the economics of incentives. The book opens with background information for the reader who is unfamiliar with current issues in the telecommunications industry. The following sections focus on four central aspects of the recent deregulatory movement: the introduction of incentive regulation; one-way access (access given by a local network to the providers of complementary segments, such as long-distance or information services); the special nature of competition in an industry requiring two-way access (whereby competing networks depend on the mutual termination of calls); and universal service, in particular the two leading contenders for the competitively neutral provision of universal service: the use of engineering models to compute subsidies and the design of universal service auctions. The book concludes with a discussion of the Internet and regulatory institutions.