This paper introduces a comprehensive model of the market for inventions that examines how both supply-side competition and demand-side competition affect the incentive to invent. Supply-side competition refers to competition among inventors and demand-side competition refers to competition among producers in the downstream product market. The main results are as follows. Competing inventors have greater average expected returns to invention when the downstream market is competitive than when the downstream product market is monopolistic, so downstream competition increases the incentive to invent. A multi-project monopoly inventor has greater incremental expected returns to invention when the downstream market is competitive than when it is monopolistic, so downstream competition again increases the incentive to invent. On the supply side, competition among inventors generates more R&D projects than a multi-project monopoly inventor, when the demand side of the market for inventions is a competitive. The reason for this result is that when the downstream market is competitive, the average expected returns to invention with competition among inventors are greater than the incremental expected returns to invention with a multi-project monopoly inventor.

In its recent report entitled “The Evolving IP Marketplace,” the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advances a far-reaching regulatory approach (Proposal) whose likely effect would be to distort the operation of the intellectual property (IP) marketplace in ways that will hamper the innovation and commercialization of new technologies. The gist of the FTC Proposal is to rely on highly non-standard and misguided definitions of economic terms of art such as “ex ante” and “hold-up,” while urging new inefficient rules for calculating damages for patent infringement. Stripped of the technicalities, the FTC Proposal would so reduce the costs of infringement by downstream users that the rate of infringement would unduly increase, as potential infringers find it in their interest to abandon the voluntary market in favor of a more attractive system of judicial pricing. As the number of nonmarket transactions increases, the courts will play an ever larger role in deciding the terms on which the patents of one party may be used by another party. The adverse effects of this new trend will do more than reduce the incentives for innovation; it will upset the current set of well-functioning private coordination activities in the IP marketplace that are needed to accomplish the commercialization of new technologies. Such a trend would seriously undermine capital formation, job growth, competition, and the consumer welfare the FTC seeks to promote.

In this paper, we examine how these consequences play out in the context of standard-setting organizations (SSOs), whose activities are key to bringing standardized technologies to market. If the FTC’s proposed definitions of “reasonable royalties” and “incremental damages” become the rules for calculating damages in patent infringement cases, the stage will be set to allow the FTC and private actors to attack, after the fact, all standard pricing methods through some combination of antitrust litigation or direct regulation on the ground that such time-honored royalty arrangements involve the use of monopoly power by patent licensors. In consequence, the FTC’s Proposal, if adopted, could well encourage potential licensees to adopt the very holdout strategies the FTC purports to address and that well-organized SSOs routinely counteract today. Simply put, the FTC’s proposal for regulating IP by limiting the freedom of SSOs to set their own terms would replace private coordination with government hold-up. The FTC should instead abandon its preliminary recommendations and support the current set of licensing tools that have fueled effective innovation and dissemination in the IP marketplace. FTC forbearance from its unwise Proposal will improve bargaining incentives, reduce administrative costs, and remove unnecessary elements of legal uncertainty in the IP system, thereby allowing effective marketplace transactions to advance consumer welfare.

This article extends antitrust analysis to two-sided markets in which a virtual
monopolist competes with local bricks-and-mortar dealers. The discussion
examines the market power of an Internet market maker as well as an Internet
matchmaker. The analysis shows that equilibrium in a two-sided market can be
characterized as a one-sided market in which transaction demand depends on
the bid-ask spread of the central market maker. This allows for a straightforward
extension of critical demand elasticity and critical loss analysis from
one-sided markets to two-sided markets, with antitrust tests based on the
hypothetical monopolist’s bid-ask spread. Antitrust analysis of a one-sided
market also carries over to a two-sided market with a matchmaker where
antitrust tests are based on the sum of participation fees.

In this article, I define business method inventions and provide an economic framework to address the question of patentability raised in Bilski. A business method invention is the discovery of a commercial technique that firms can apply to address market opportunities. The initial implementation of a business method invention by firms is a Schumpeterian innovation. I advance several arguments in favor of business method patentability. Business method inventions are an important foundation for entrepreneurship and a channel for the commercialization of scientific and technological inventions. IP protections for business method inventions are essential for economic efficiency, including incentives for invention, efficient allocation of inventions, and transaction efficiencies in the market for discoveries. Business method inventions are significant because they are the foundation of what I term the “Business Revolution”: the augmentation and replacement of human effort in business transactions by computers, communications systems, and the Internet. I conclude that the patent system should continue to provide intellectual property protections for business method inventions just as it does for other types of inventions.
“The question in this case turns on whether a patent can be issued for a claimed invention designed for the business world.”
Bilski v. Kappos 561 U.S._(2010).

I present a comprehensive model of international trade in technology that considers both the demand for inventions and the supply of inventions. On the demand side, domestic and foreign firms make strategic technology adoption decisions. On the supply side, inventors compete to sell licenses for their technology to domestic and foreign firms. Countries benefit from international trade in technology because they obtain the best invention from a larger pool of inventions. International trade in technology increases the extent of the market for inventions and thereby improves the quality of innovation. Technology trade lowers prices, increases outputs, and increases the volume of trade in differentiated products. When traded products are not close substitutes, international markets for technology generate gains from trade. The results of the analysis are robust to the possibility of technology transfer either through expropriation or imitation. Protection of intellectual property rights preserves incentives for entry of inventors and improves the quality of innovation.

I examine a three-stage model of Schumpeterian competition among entrepreneurs. In the initial entry stage, entrepreneurs invest in innovation and establish firms. In the next stage, entrepreneurs choose prices strategically, make irreversible investments, and compete to serve consumers, while faced with asymmetric information about each others’ innovations. In the final creative destruction stage, firms with better technologies remain in the market while firms with inferior technologies exit the market. The model features strategic pricing by firms and the possibility of heterogeneous technologies remaining in the market. The model provides a necessary and sufficient condition for creative destruction.

Search firms provide matchmaking services between consumers and suppliers that are central to the efficiency of the economy. The significant economic contributions of search firms as commercial intermediaries have important implications for antitrust policy towards search markets. As search firms generate more information about buyers and sellers, they become intermediaries for an increasing proportion of economic transactions. This article introduces the concept of the “map of commerce” to describe the extensive directory of business constructed by search firms. This article also introduces the concept of the “circular flow of information” to represent the comprehensive nature of the economic information managed by search firms. These firms induce information revelation through self-selection both by consumers and by advertisers. Consumers reveal personal information through the use of keywords and through their online behavior. Advertisers reveal company information by bidding on positions on the search page. Search firms employ information to match buyers with sellers more effectively and to increase earnings from advertising. The analysis shows that economic efficiencies generated by the circular flow of information depend on the strength of competition among search firms. The discussion considers antitrust policy towards Internet search markets, including issues of privacy, competition, and cooperative agreements.

The article presents a theory of the firm based on the ability to separate the objectives of the firm from those of its owners. The discussion introduces a separation criterion that defines a firm as a transaction institution such that the consumption objectives of the institution’s owners can be separated from the objectives of the institution itself. The separation criterion provides a bright line distinction between firms and other types of transaction institutions. Firms under this criterion include profit-maximizing sole proprietorships, corporations, and limited-liability partnerships. Institutions that are not classified as firms include contracts, clubs, workers’ cooperatives, buyers’ cooperatives, merchants associations, basic partnerships, government enterprises, and government-sponsored enterprises. The separation theory of the firm yields insights into corporate law that extend and complement the standard contractarian approach. The separation theory of the firm places emphasis on shareholder property rights and corporate governance.

Over the past several decades, regulatory authorities have imposed an increasingly broad array of access requirements on local telephone providers. In so doing, policymakers typically applied previous approaches to access regulation without fully considering whether the regulatory justifications used in favor of those previous access requirements remained valid. They also allowed each access regime to be governed by a different pricing methodology and set access prices in a way that treated each network component as if it existed in isolation. The result was a regulatory regime that was internally inconsistent and vulnerable to regulatory arbitrage. In this Article, Professors Daniel Spulber and Christopher Yoo trace the development of these access regimes and evaluate the continuing validity of the rationales traditionally invoked to justify mandating access to local telephone networks (e.g., natural monopoly, network economic effects, vertical exclusion, and ruinous competition) in a world in which competition among local telephone providers is a real possibility. They then apply a five-part framework for classifying different types of access based on the branch of mathematics known as graph theory that models the interactions among different components. This framework shows how different types of access can have a differential impact on network configuration, capacity, reliability, and cost. It also captures the extent to which networks constitute complex systems in which network components interact with one another in ways that can make network behavior quite unpredictable. In addition, the framework demonstrates how mandated access can increase transaction costs by forcing local telephone providers to externalize functions that would be more efficiently provided within the boundaries of the firm.

Technology lock-in advocates argue that governments should step in to coordinate technology adoption decisions. Due to the presence of network effects, advocates warn that consumers may fail to adopt the best technology, thus missing out on potential benefits. Even worse, consumers may split, adopting multiple technologies and thus missing out on the benefits of network effects. Due to coordination problems, consumers cannot mitigate the effects of bad technology choices and the economy becomes stuck with inferior innovations. This article demonstrates that consumer coordination solves the underlying network effects problem, thus eliminating technology lock-in. Network effects are confined at most to the information and communications technology and selected electronics industries, which have developed mechanisms for interconnection and interoperability. Firms have incentives to provide interconnection and interoperability when it is efficient to do so. Rapid technological innovation is apparent whereas technology lock-in is a rare phenomenon. Antitrust policy founded on technology lock-in arguments is misguided and is likely to damage incentives for innovation.

Microsoft v. Commission indicates a shift in competition policy at the expense of protections for intellectual property. The case applies  essential facilities  arguments to Microsoft's server operating system and  tying  arguments to its Windows Media Player. The dynamic effects of Microsoft v. Commission pose a substantial risk to the incentive to innovate in several ways. First, mandatory licensing and unbundling of the elements of an invention erode intellectual property rights. Second, the targeting of multinational corporations by the European Union creates barriers to international trade whose impacts extend across the global economy. Third, the interpretation of  abuse of a dominant position  focuses on market outcomes rather than on anticompetitive conduct, thus penalizing successful innovators and rewarding their competitors. Competition policy based on Microsoft v. Commission diminishes the incentive to innovate.

Network effects occur in markets when consumers receive mutual benefits from consuming the same good. Markets with network effects that have generated particular policy concerns include the information and communications technology and electronics (ICTE) industries. Many economists and legal scholars argue that the presence of network effects creates a form of market failure known as “network externalities” and recommend new forms of antitrust and regulation targeted at particular firms in the ICTE industries. The debate over network effects is likely to have major consequences for these industries, with effects comparable to landmark antitrust cases involving IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft. This article provides a comprehensive examination of network effects that addresses the legal, economic, and technological basis for this phenomenon. The article develops a general framework for examining consumer coordination in markets with network effects. The discussion demonstrates that consumers can coordinate their consumption decisions to obtain the benefits of network effects. When there are small numbers of consumers, as Coase argued, low transaction costs allow the formation of informal agreements and formal contracts that are economically efficient. When there are large numbers of consumers, the market offers many mechanisms of spontaneous order in the sense of Hayek. The article refers to Coasian negotiation as “coordination in the small,” and to Hayekian spontaneous order as “coordination in the large.” The discussion demonstrates that consumer coordination, both in the small and in the large, results in efficient consumption of network goods and adoption of new technologies. Market institutions are fully capable of addressing network effects. Antitrust policy based on correcting market failure due to “network externalities” is likely to impact both competition and innovation adversely. Network effects do not provide a sound basis for antitrust policy.

The international market for technology is growing rapidly relative to world GDP. To study the international technology market, I present a model of innovation and international trade in which inventors auction their technology in both domestic and foreign markets. There is monopolistic competition in differentiated products. International trade in technology has number of significant economic effects. Technology trade improves the quality of innovation by increasing the pool of R&D experiments from which the best technology is chosen. Technology trade increases the efficiency of invention while at the same time lowering the total number of inventors relative to the equilibrium without technology trade. Technology trade increases the volume of trade in goods. Technology trade increases product variety at the market equilibrium. Technology trade increases national income in each country and increases total gains from trade.

The emergence of broadband Internet technologies, such as cable modem and digital subscriber line (DSL) systems, has reopened debates over how the Internet should be regulated. Advocates of network neutrality and open access to cable modem systems have proposed extending the regulatory regime developed to govern conventional telephone and narrowband Internet service to broadband. A critical analysis of the rationales traditionally invoked to justify the regulation of telecommunications networks - such as natural monopoly, network economic effects, vertical exclusion, and the dangers of ruinous competition - reveals that those rationales depend on empirical and theoretical preconditions that do not apply to broadband. In addition, the current policy debate treats access to networks as a unitary phenomenon that fails to take into account how different types of access requirements can affect network performance in widely divergent ways. The current debate also fails to capture how individual network elements can interact in ways that can be quite unpredictable. In this Article, Professors Spulber and Yoo analyze broadband access using a theory of network configuration based on a branch of mathematics known as graph theory, which captures the interactions between individual components that cause networks to behave as complex systems. This theory yields a five-part classification system that provides insights into the effect of different types of access on network cost, capacity, reliability, and transaction costs.

Antitrust has played a major role in telecommunications policy, demonstrated most dramatically by the equal access mandate imposed during the breakup of AT&T. In this Article we explore the extent to which antitrust can continue to serve as a source of access mandates following the Supreme Court's 2004 Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP decision. Although Trinko sharply criticized access remedies and antitrust courts' ability to enforce them, it is not yet clear whether future courts will interpret the opinion as barring all antitrust access claims. Even more importantly, the opinion contains language hinting at possible bases for differentiating among different types of access, in contrast to previous analyses, which have generally grouped all of the forms of access into a single category. We build upon this language to offer an analytical framework that captures the manner in which different components of a network can interact with one another as parts of a complex system. Our analysis also offers a basis for classifying the different types of access into five categories: retail, wholesale, interconnection, platform, and unbundled. We then employ this framework to analyze a range of policy and doctrinal issues, including the current debate over network neutrality.

The case examines the remarkable international expansion strategy of Cemex, a company that began as a local firm in a developing economy and rose to the top ranks of the global cement industry. Cemex offers a striking example of how a company can take leadership of the process of globalization. The case considers how Cemex took advantage of shifting distribution and communications technologies to establish itself as a market maker in the nascent international trading market for cement. The ability to arbitrage across its many buyer and seller markets, achieved through the acquisition of pivotal assets and investment in superior information technology, has become a key source of competitive advantage for the company. The case illustrates several features of international business, including the design of strategy to meet global competition, modes of entry into international markets, and – more generally – how the forces of globalization are reshaping the general run of industries.

Telecommunications regulation has experienced a fundamental shift from rate regulation to increased reliance on compelled access, perhaps best exemplified by the Telecommunications Act of 1996's imposition of no fewer than four new access requirements. Unfortunately, each access requirement is governed by a separate set of rules for determining both the scope and the price of access. The resulting ad hoc regime has created difficult definitional problems and opportunities for regulatory arbitrage. In this article we propose a system inspired by the discipline of mathematics known as graph theory that integrates all of the different forms of access into a single analytical framework. This system separates different access regimes into five categories: (1) retail access, (2) wholesale access, (3) interconnection access, (4) platform access, and (5) unbundled access. It also provides insights into how each type of access complicates the already difficult problems of network configuration and management and introduces inefficient biases into decisions about network capacity and design. The approach we propose also provides insights into the transaction cost implications of the different types of access. Drawing on the Coasean theory of the firm, our approach examines the tradeoffs between internal governance costs and the external transaction costs of providing access to offer a theory of network boundaries. This framework shows how access regulation distorts networks' natural boundaries and provides a basis for evaluating whether private ordering through markets would lead to more efficient network design.

The demise of Enron, the largest bankruptcy in United States history, raised fundamental questions about the role of trust in agency relationships. The corporate collapse cast doubts on trust relationships between investors and corporate managers, between investors and investment advisors and accountants, between pension beneficiaries and trustees, and between employers and employees. The events surrounding Enron gave support to arguments that courts and legislators had caused corporate fiduciary law to abandon trust. In this article, we present a general framework for understanding the role of trust in agency relationships. We provide an operational definition of trust that clears up many conflicting interpretations and allows for treatment of diverse types of agency situations, including investor/corporate manager, trustee/beneficiary, attorney/client, and employer/sales agent. Also, we show how different types of governance mechanisms work together to promote trust. Our analysis is of particular interest for corporate governance since as Hansmann and Kraakman point out, three generic agency problems arise in companies as reflected in potential conflicts between (1) owners and managers, (2) majority and minority owners, and (3) between the firm itself and contracting parties such as creditors, employees and customers.

Lenovo stunned observers with its acquisition of IBM's personal computer division. The case examines the Lenovo group from the time the company was established and considers how Lenovo became the leading Chinese computer company. The case considers the challenges faced by the company with increasing trade liberalization in China and details the initial stages of Lenovo’s international strategy. The case concludes with Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business and considers the issues that must be addressed as Lenovo enters into global competition.

The dominant approach to regulating communications networks treats each network component as if it existed in isolation. In so doing, the current approach fails to capture one of the essential characteristics of networks, which is the complex manner in which components interact with one another when combined into an integrated system. In this Essay, Professors Daniel Spulber and Christopher Yoo propose a new regulatory framework based on the study of networks as complex systems. This framework would better reflect the interrelationships among network elements. They then apply the insights provided by this framework to a number of current policy issues, including the decision to apply the same methodology to set prices for interconnection and access to unbundled network elements under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the decision to base access rates on cost, proposals to base access prices on market benchmarks, compelled access to broadband networks, and the regulation of Internet telephony. They also explore the extent to which the framework can be employed to support a formal calculation of regulated rates, concluding that a shift to a graph theoretical framework has the potential to revolutionize network policy.

A fundamental transformation is taking place in the basic approach to regulating network industries. Policy makers are in the process of abandoning their century-old commitment to rate regulation in favor of a new regulatory approach known as access regulation. Rather than controlling the price of outputs, the new approach focuses on compelling access to and mandating the price ofinputs. Unfortunately, this shift in regulatory policy has not been met with an accompanying shift in the manner in which regulatory authorities regulate prices. Specifically, policy makers have continued to base rates on either historical or replacement cost. We argue that this fundamental shift in regulatory approach demands an equally fundamentai shift in the approach to setting prices. Economic theory suggests that regulatory authorities should base access prices on market prices. In addition, because compelled access to most telecommunications networks requires that competitors be permitted to place equipment on the network owner's property, access requirements constitute physical takings for which market-based compensation must be paid. Although the unavailability of market-based determinants once justified basing prices on some measure of cost, the shift in regulatory policy (especially when combined with the emergence of direct, facilities-based competition made possible by technological convergence) has caused the justificationsfor refusing to set rates on the basis of market prices to fall away. We then use these insights to analyze access pricing with respect to three emerging regulatory issues: (1) access to unbundled network elements mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, (2) access to utility poles compelled by the 1996 amendments to the Pole Attachments Act, and (3) open access to digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modem networks providing high-speed broadband services.

Potential entrants may discern three types of entry barriers that result from three possible competitive advantages of incumbent firms: cost advantage, differentiation advantage, and transaction advantage. Competitive advantages tend to be temporary, due to technological change and changes in customer demand, so that entrants can devise various types of competitive strategies to overcome perceived barriers to entry.

Economic and management perspectives on management strategy can and should be integrated. The intermediation theory of the firm and models of market microstructure provide a basis for advancing the integration of management and economics perspectives. In particular, the theory allows for a combination of economic approaches such as Porter's work on competitive strategy with management approaches such as work on the abilities and resources of the organization. The article presents a unified strategy framework based on transaction costs and the intermediation theory of the firm.

Market organization significantly affects total output and incentives for firms to invest. I compare three types of market organization. In a market with search and random matching, total output is excessive and there are incentives for inefficient underinvestment. In a market with a monopoly dealer, total output is insufficient and underinvestment also occurs. Competition between the search market and the dealer market improves incentives to invest, and competition between dealers yields efficient total output and investment. This suggests that additional entry of wholesalers and other interbusiness dealers should stimulate aggregate business investment.

Just as the industrial revolution mechanized the manufacturing functions of firms, the information revolution is automating their merchant functions. Four types of potential productivity gains are expected from business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce: cost efficiencies from automation of transactions, potential advantages of new market intermediaries, consolidation of demand and supply through organized exchanges, and changes in the extent of vertical integration of firms. The article examines the characteristics of B2B online intermediaries, including categories of goods traded, market mechanisms employed, and ownership arrangements, and considers the market structure of B2B e-commerce.

General Motors's (GM's) acquisition of Fisher Body is the classic example of market failure in the literature on contracts and the theory of the firm. According to the standard account, in 1926 GM merged vertically with Fisher Body, a maker of auto bodies, because of concerns over transaction-specific investment and contractual holdup. That account exhibits errors of historical fact and interpretation. General Motors acquired a 60 percent interest in Fisher Body in 1919. Moreover, the contractual arrangements and working relationship prior to the 1926 merger exhibited trust rather than opportunism. Fisher Body's production technology did not exhibit asset specificity. The merger reflected economic considerations specific to that time, not some immutable market failure. We demonstrate that vertical integration was directed at improving coordination of production and inventories, assuring GM of adequate supplies of auto bodies, and providing GM with access to the executive talents of the Fisher brothers. Citation Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.

In this article we evaluate the economic and legal implications of allowing ISPs to avoid paying for interstate access by taking advantage of the FCC's access-charge exemption for enhanced service providers (ESPs). We agree with the FCC's conclusion that the dramatic growth of Internet usage and Internet services create significant benefits for the economy and the American people. We discuss, however, that the ESP exemption creates traffic jams at the on-ramps to the information superhighway- what we call a cyberjam.  In Part II, we examine the role that competitive prices play in influencing supply and demand in the market for access to Internet services over the PSTN. In Part III, we examine the economics of network congestion. In Part IV, we examine the pricing of access to ISPs over the PSTN. In Part V, we consider property rights issues associated with the costs of the FCC's tentative conclusion to continue the temporary ESP exemption. In Part VI, we argue that is unlawful for the FCC to order incumbent LECs to continue subsidizing ISPs through the perpetuation of the currently temporary ESP exemption from interstate access charges, or through any other artifice.

The competitive transformation of telecommunications and other network industries in the United States has caused governmental policy makers to be increasingly concerned with the 'fairness" of the deregulatory process. In this Essay, Professors Sidak and Spulber offer a set of concrete guidelines that regulators of network industries should follow in removing regulatory controls: To achieve the productive and allocative benefits of competition and to ensure that the transition from regulation to competition is accomplished fairly, regulators should observe the principles of economic incentive, equal opportunity, and impartiality. Only by treating incumbents and entrants symmetrically and resisting the temptation to "manage" competition, Professors Sidak and Spulber argue, will the regulators ensure that the deregulatory process in network industries will yield all of the benefits of market competition.

The regulated firm's choice of capital structure is affected by countervailing incentives: the firm wishes to signal high value to capital markets to boost its market value while also signalling high cost to regulators to induce rate increases. When the firm's investment is large, countervailing incentives lead both high- and low-cost firms to choose the same capital structure in equilibrium, thus decoupling capital structure from private information. When investment is small or medium-sized, the model may admit separating equilibria in which high-cost firms issue greater equity and low-cost firms rely more on debt financing.

We develop a model of retail competition in which retailers select prices and investments in cost reduction. An equilibrium is constructed in which several identical firms enter and then engage in a phase of vigorous price competition. This phase is concluded with a "shakeout," as a low-price, low-cost firm comes to dominate the market. A central feature of the equilibrium is that low prices are complementary with large investments in cost reduction. Even though the dominant firm's price rises through time, and initially may be below marginal cost, we argue that an interpretation of predatory pricing may be inappropriate.

Mr. Sidak and Professor Spulber extend here the analysis in Deregulatory Takings and Breach of the Regulatory Contract, published last year in this Review. They respond to comments and criticisms raised not only by Professors Baumol and Merrill, but also by Judge Williams and Professor Williamson in their Comments published last year. Sidak and Spulber begin by exploring the constitutional limitations on the government's ability to redefine the public purpose to which a regulated utility has dedicated its private property. Then, the authors examine whether the government has made givings that implicitly compensate the regulated firm for its diminution in value owing to the imposition of policies mandating network unbundling at regulated prices. Sidak and Spulber refine the limiting principles for the recovery of stranded costs that they articulated in their earlier article and show how those principles reconcile with the actual treatment of losses from deregulation in disparate industries. Next, they expose the economic fallacies in the notion of forward-looking costs as that term has been used by the Federal Communications Commission and state public utility commissions to set prices for mandatory network access under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The authors analyze the Supreme Courts 1996 decision in United States v. Winstar Corp. and argue that the reasoning employed by seven Justices in that case comports not only with earlier decisions of the Court construing the regulatory contract with public utilities, but also with the contemporary economic analysis of why the regulatory contract is essential and efficient. Sidak and Spulber explain how transition bonds may solve the stranded cost conundrum in the telecommunications and electric power industries by permitting the securitization of stranded costs in a manner that restores investors' faith in the state's ability to make credible commitments. Finally, the authors examine the significance of the Eighth Circuit's 1997 decision in Iowa Utilities Board v. FCC for the debate over deregulatory takings and breach of the regulatory contract.

Mail delivery is one of the few economic activities that has avoided the wave of deregulation and privatization that has swept network industries over the last few decades. This Article examines several questions regarding the business activities of Canada Post Corporation in a competitive environment. What should be the appropriate mandate of Canada Post? If Canada Post is a natural monopoly, what form of regulation best serves Canadian consumers? If Canada Post's delivery of letter mail is not a natural monopoly, what basis exists for retaining Canada Post's current statutory monopoly? What potential exists for Canada Post to abuse its statutory monopoly-and other statutory privileges and immunities-to compete unfairly against efficient private suppliers of postal services? Part I of this Article outlines the regulatory and institutional setting in which Canada Post operates, including the nature and extent of Canada Post's legal monopoly. Part II demonstrates why technological justifications for the postal monopoly are no longer valid. Part III establishes that public provisions of the full range of postal services is no longer needed. Part IV explains how postal pricing and regulation can cause competitive problems for private firms because of incorrect measurement and misallocation of attributable costs and because of the potential to misuse Ramsey pricing principles. Part V presents four options that are available to the Canadian Parliament for addressing the problem of protecting efficient competition from the postal monopoly.

The paper addresses the question of rising access to the network facilities of an incumbent firm after deregulation. Network access pricing continues to be regulated in such industries as telecommunications, railroads, electric power and natural gas. We emphasize that access prices should be set such that they satisfy an individual rationality condition for the incumbent firm so that access is granted voluntarily. We examine the effects of the voluntary access condition on incentives for entry and show that properly chosen access prices provide incentives for efficient entry using several alternative competition models: Bertrand-Nash, Cournot-Nash and Chamberlin competition with differentiated products.

Until 1996, local telephone markets had been treated as natural monopolies and thus subject to regulation. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the "Act") seeks to introduce competition into these markets. One method the Act adopts to stimulate such competition is to mandate that incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) provide access to their unbundled network, such as loops and switches. In August of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its First Report and Order, which established a pricing rule for UNEs. The FCC's pricing rule sets the price for a UNE at its total element long-run incremental cost (TELRIC) plus a reasonable share of the incumbent LEC's forward-looking common costs. We propose a pricing methodology to implement that rule based on a combination of what we call the market-determined efficient component-pricing rule (M-ECPR) and competitively neutral end-user charges. We assert that using the M-ECPR to price UNE access is more faithful to the language and intent of the Act than is the approach adopted by the FCC. We also maintain that the FCC misunderstood the efficient component-pricing rule when the agency rejected it as a basis of pricing UNEs. After outlining our proposal for pricing UNEs, we argue that the FCC's pricing rule is problematic because it prevents the incumbent LEC from recovering its total costs by denying any recovery of the LEC's historical costs and ensuring that it will not fully recover its forward-looking costs. We then respond to criticisms of the M-ECPR by various economists and refute the assertions that the principal authors of the original efficient component-pricing rule rejected the M-ECPR in favor of TELRIC pricing for UNEs. We conclude by warning that the FCC's pricing rule would discourage investment in local telecommunications networks and may eventually drive LECs into bankruptcy.

Over the past century, as the regulatory state steadily expanded its reach, courts frequently addressed claims that regulatory actions amounted to an unconstitutional taking. Recently, however, legislation in the telecommunications and electric power industries have brought deregulatory concerns to the fore. In this landmark Article, Mr. Sidak and Professor Spulber present the first detailed analysis of the interaction between the Takings Clause, deregulation, network pricing, and contract law. In the typical case of regulated industries, firms and their investors agree to bear considerable incumbent burdens in exchange for a regulated rate of return. Sidak and Spulber first demonstrate that this arrangement represents a regulatory contract and find that recent deregulatory measures constitute breach. The authors then argue that, whether or not a regulatory contract in fact exists, recent mandatory unbundling in the electric power industry and open-access regulation in the telecommunications field effectuate a taking without just compensation. Finally, relying on concepts such as investment-backed expectations and the efficient component-pricing rule, the authors not only demonstrate that damages would be equivalent under either contractor takings theory, but also warn that governments could face enormous liability for their deregulatory measures.

A model of market making by firms with heterogeneous consumers, suppliers and price-setting intermediaries is examined. Consumers and suppliers engage in time-consuming search for the best price and discount future returns. There exists a unique symmetric equilibrium pricing strategy. In equilibrium, there are non-degenerate distributions of ask and bid prices that straddle the Walrasian price. As the discount rate goes to zero, the ranges of the bid and ask prices, and the total output approach the Walrasian equilibrium values. As the discount rate becomes large, the ask and bid prices approach the monopoly pricing policies. An increase in the discount rate leads to an increase in the equilibrium number of active firms, profit per firm, the mean spread between ask and bid prices, and the variance of ask and bid prices, while lowering the number of active consumers and suppliers. The model is extended to examine the steady-state market equilibrium with continual entry and exit of consumers and suppliers.

This paper emphasizes the important role played by intermediaries in the economy, including wholesalers, retailers, and financial firms. The paper defines an intermediary as an economic agent that purchases from suppliers for resale to buyers or that helps buyers and sellers meet and transact. Intermediaries coordinate transactions and provide the institutions of exchange that constitute market microstructure. Intermediaries set prices, manage inventories, coordinate exchange, and provide information through guarantees and delegated monitoring. These crucial activities help to explain how markets attain equilibrium prices and quantities. The paper suggests that the study of intermediation should be incorporated into mainstream economic analysis.

The conclusions of the Bertrand model of competition are substantially altered by the presence of asymmetric information about rivals' costs. Asymmetric information eliminates the discontinuity in the Bertrand model and significantly alters the properties of the market equilibrium. In the Bertrand-Nash equilibrium when rivals' costs are unknown, firms price above marginal cost and have positive expected profit. The analysis is extended to franchise competition. The market equilibrium is sensitive to market structure and yields incentives for entry.

The consent decree that restructured the telecommunications industry by breaking up the Bell System assigned long-distance and equipment manufacturing to AT&T while forbidding the Regional Bell Operating Companies from entering these lines of business. These restrictions were justified by arguments that the local exchange network was a natural monopoly, that the carriers benefited from barriers to entry, that they could leverage their monopoly power into other markets, and that they would use revenues from local service to subsidize their entry into other lines of business. In this Article, Professor Spulber shows that these arguments are no longer valid because of technological and market changes in the telecommunications industry.

The author presents an integrated survey of management strategy, which examines organizational design, competitive strategy, and public policy considerations. In addition, he offers suggestions on how economic analysis can be applied in unifying and developing management strategy as a field of study.

Abstract: Federal regulations promoting open-access transportation dramatically altered the organizational structure of the U.S. market for natural gas in the 1980s, generally unbundling the merchant and transport functions of interstate pipelines. An empirical analysis of wellhead spot prices is undertaken to examine the effect of open access on the geographic scope of the spot market. Using monthly spot price data from 1984-91, three statistical tests are applied and compared: price correlations, Granger causality, and cointegration. We find that open access integrated the regional wellhead markets into a national competitive market for natural gas. The effects of unbundling on contracts for natural gas are then investigated. Incentives for long-term contracts between pipelines and producers are shown to be effectively removed by the introduction of competitive buying and selling of gas at the wellhead through open access. Copyright 1994 by the University of Chicago.

We examine the equilibrium price, investment, and capital structure of a regulated firm using a sequential model of regulation. We show that the firm's capital structure has a significant effect on the regulated price. Consequently, the firm chooses its equity and debt strategically to affect the outcome of the regulatory process. In equilibrium, the firm issues a positive amount of debt and the likelihood of bankruptcy is positive. Debt raises the regulated price, thus mitigating regulatory opportunism. However, underinvestment due to lack of regulatory commitment to prices persists in equilibrium.

Although the Guidelines should improve the predictability of the Agency's merger enforcement policy, it is not possible to remove the exercise of judgement from the evaluation of mergers under the antitrust laws. Because the specific standards set forth in the Guidelines must be applied to a broad range of possible factual circumstances, mechanical applicatoin of those standads may provide misleading answers to the economic questions raised under the antitrust laws. Moreover, information is often incomplete and the picture of competitive conditions that develops from historical evidence may provide an incomplete answer to the forward-looking inquiry of the Guidelines. Therefore, the Agency will apply the standards of the Guidelines reasonably and flexibly to the particular facts and circumstances of each proposed merger.

The design of monopoly pricing strategies is examined in a general framework with an unknown population distribution of consumer characteristics and downward-sloping, multi-unit consumer demand. In addition, the monopolist has increasing marginal cost. Three pricing strategies are shown to implement the profit-maximizing allocation: reference point pricing, multi-unit competitive bidding with variable outputs, and generalized priority service. The analysis of pricing also is extended to include random capacity.

Second-best Pareto optimal pricing by a regulated firm subject to demand and capacity shocks is examined. Nonlinear price schedules for the firm's customers are obtained that are contingent on capacity realizations. The second-best Pareto optimal mechanism also is implemented by an allocation mechanism based on the consumer's choice of a minimum demand or firm power level. The optimal mechanism is implemented as well by a general form of priority pricing.

Abstract: The survey classifies economic theories of the firm into four categories based on the level of aggregation in economic models: (1) neoclassical, (2) industrial organization, (3) contractual, and (4) organizational incentive. Economic theories of the firm are evaluated on the basis of their potential application to problems of management decision making. The survey suggests that a management perspective can be useful in developing an integrated theoretical analysis of the firm that addresses both competitive strategy and organizational design. Copyright 1992 by MIT Press.

Abstract: Nonlinear pricing is extended to allow for demand, cost, and capacity uncertainty. Incentive schedules are developed that implement the Pareto optimal allocation. Consumers choose a reference point, e.g., baseload demand. This determines both their payment level and the state-contingent output allocation. The approximate efficiency of alternative implementation procedures with discrete customer classes and with a linear prorated service rule is also examined. Copyright 1992 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

We examine the investment decisions of regulated firms in a sequential-equilibrium model under asymmetric information. The regulator is unable to commit to a pricing policy, unlike meachanism-design models, but sets rates after observing the firm's investment. The information conveyed by the firm's investment level alleviates the underinvestment observed under full information with limited regulatory commitment. The equilibrium regulatory strategy can be characterized by a nonlinear rate-of-return schedule. A regulator announcing such a schedule would be able to make a credible commitment.

A sequential equilibrium model of private antitrust enforcement is presented. Consumers have incomplete information about cartel costs and cannot accurately estimate a priori the damage recovery from an antitrust action. Consumers are able to infer cartel costs from the equilibrium pricing strategy of firms. The universal divinity criterion is used to characterize the sequential equilibrium. It is shown that for a sufficiently large damage multiple, antitrust enforcement effectively increases social welfare.

This paper considers the optimal design of antitrust policy when collusive behaviour is unobservable and production costs are private information.1 The analysis shows that asymmetric information can be a significant factor in the decision to tolerate some degree of collusion even though price fixing is illegal per se.

This article addresses two significant problems arising from the delegation of law enforcement. First, the policymaker's problem of designing incentives to induce efficient performance by the enforcement agency is examined. Second, the effect of delegation on the enforcer's strategic interaction with potential offenders is specified.

This Article focuses on an assessment of potential costs in natural gas transmission, although its conclusions apply to partial deregulation of other industries, particularly electric power generation and transmission.

A market with free entry monopolistic competition is studied. Nonlinear pricing is shown to be the Bertrand-Nash equilibrium strategy for firms. Given small per capita fixed costs, the nonlinear pricing equilibrium approaches the perfectly competitive equilibrium with marginal cost pricing. Nonlinear pricing is associated with greater product variety than linear pricing. Increased variety leads to efficient pricing.

An economy with a single output and input is considered for the case of economies of scale in production. Equilibria are studied for a cooperative game of joint production in which goods are allocated by a price system. The paper proposes a second best core in which allocations that are feasible for a coalition must be attainable by a price system. Existence is examined and properties of second best core allocations are analysed.

Rate regulation is studied as a bargaining process in which consumers and the firm negotiate output and payments under asymmetric information. The feasible set of transactions given incentive compatibility and individual rationality constraints is characterized. The set of interim incentive efficient mechanisms for the direct revelation game is also characterized. Sufficient conditions are given for efficient mechanisms to be full information efficient. Efficient mechanisms are identified which correspond to nonlinear monopoly pricing, monosony compensation schedules, and the Baron-Myerson regulation model.

A market model of environmental regulation with interdependent production and pollution abatement costs and heterogeneous firms is developed. Firms have private information about costs which have a quadratic form. Firms pursue Bayes–Nash strategies in communication with the regulator. The full information optimum cannot be attained unless gains from trade in the product market net of external damages exceed the information rents earned by firms. Aggregate output and externality levels are lower at the regulated equilibrium than at the full information social optimum.

Sustainable monopoly prices, outputs and producer care are examined in a contestable market setting under alternative liability rules. The market attains a second-best optimum under strict liability, negligence and no liability. The threat of entry is thus sufficient for a monopoly to supply second-best optimal product quality.

A model of endogenous price adjustment under money growth is presented. Firms follow (s,S) pricing policies, and price revisions are imperfectly synchronized. In the aggregate, price stickiness disappears, and money is neutral. The connection between firm price adjustment and relative price variability in the presence of monetary growth is also investigated. The results contrast with those obtained in models with exogenous fixed timing of price adjustment.

This article studies pricing for natural monopolies by using a cooperative game of joint production. Outputs are allocated by a price system. We introduce the concept of the second-best core, which is a subset of the set of zero-profit, second-best Pareto-optimal prices. Prices are such that no group of consumers subsidizes the purchase of another group. We consider the relations among the second-best core and sustainability, supportability, and natural monopoly. For specific preferences and technology we demonstrate the existence of the second-best core. We design a market mechanism for franchise allocation, which achieves second-best pricing without price regulation.

The Aumann-Shapley Value allocation is shown to be in the Core of a benefit allocation game with non-decreasing returns to scale. The value coincides with the competitive allocation for a cost function that is homogeneous of degree one.

The long-run efficiency properties of regulatory instruments are examined in a multiple-input framework. The effluent tax and tradeable permit are shown to be efficient with free entry and exit of small firms. The across-the-board effluent standard results in excessive entry and excessive industry pollution.

The paper shows how various features of market organization, such as existence of retail chains, the centralized warehousing of inventories by wholesalers, and the arrangements whereby suppliers partially reimburse sellers for unsold inventories can be explained in terms of optimal contracts for sharing the risks of excess inventories. When retailers face heterogeneous demands, the paper demonstrates the optimality of shared inventories and obtains optimal incentive properties for the risk sharing policy.

The multicohort fishery subject to random environmental disturbances is examined within a market framework. The free access problem is considered and optimal selective and proportional harvesting policies are discussed.

Two part pricing by a multiproduct monopoly and a differentiated oligopoly are examined and compared. Two part pricing policies are seen to depend on whether products are complements or substitutes and on whether or not the market is segmented. A principle result is that although competition tends to lower unit prices, there is no corresponding tendency for competition to reduce entry fees. The unit pricing rule is related to the Ramsey pricing rule. Oligopoly equilibrium unit prices equal marginal cost when there is one consumer type.

The size of the firm relative to market demand is crucial to a determination of whether there exist sustainable monopoly prices. In the one product case the size of the firm is its minimum efficient scale. In the multiproduct case size is defined by a set of outputs at which cost complementarities are present. The analysis shows that when the size of the firm is sufficiently large, there exist anonymously equitable Aumann-Shapley prices. Further, at these prices natural monopoly is sustainable against rival entry. The Aumann-Shapley price are also shown to be quantity sustainable in the sense of Brock and Scheinkman.

The properties of the firm's cost function are examined when investment is irreversible and there are costs of capital adjustment. The effects of the firm's initial capital stock on total, marginal and average costs are analysed.

The market allocation of renewable resources is examined when growth rates are affected by random disturbances. Given free access to a renewable resource, environmental disturbances are shown to affect the biological survival of the resource. The optimal solution is then examined and it is shown to be achieved by a competitive allocation when property rights are clearly defined given rational expectations or a complete set of contingent futures markets. The stochastic dynamics are shown in each case to differ considerably from the deterministic model.

Pulse-fishing harvesting policies are shown to be optimal for a competitive firm managing a multicohort fishery subject to environmental disturbances. Selective harvesting and non-selective proportional harvesting policies are examined. It is shown that pulse-fishing implies convergence to a unique, invariant probability distribution on cohort biomass levels and environmental disturbances that is independent of the initial state of the system.

The dynamic effects of regularity lag and deregulation on the behavior of a firm with imperfectly adjustable capital are examined. Given adjustment costs and irreversible investment, the firm reacts in advance to anticipated changes in regulation. In the regulatory lag case, capital increases after regulation is imposed. The Averch-Johnson effect is observed before regulation, but not necessarily afterwards. Sufficient conditions are given for the capital bias to increase. The regulated firm may choose inputs reflecting either a labor or capital bias in anticipation of deregulation. Sufficient conditions are given for the capital bias to be lessened by deregulation.

This paper presents a dynamic model of entry in which established firms pursue a Cournot - Nash (alternatively Stackelberg) strategy toward a potential entrant. The entrant behaves in Cournot-Nash fashion and chooses output on the basis of expected post-entry profits at the equilibrium of the post-entry game. Within this framework, a constant output entry-deterring strategy would in- volve maintenance of an entry-deterring out- put level before and after entry is threatened. An excess capacity entry-deterring strategy would involve holding excess capacity at an entry-deterring level and increasing output to that level after entry is threatened. Special conditions are presented under which the Sylos Postulate or the Excess Capacity Hypothesis will accurately describe optimal entry-deterring strategies. In addition, special conditions are examined under which the established firm maintains a constant output or holds pre-entry excess capacity when large-scale entry does in fact take place. The analysis shows that in general, established firm reactions to entry are quite different from these special cases.

The sequential search for a backstop energy technology is examined using an optimal growth model with an exhaustible energy resource. It is assumed that an economic planner periodically reviews the outcomes of a stochastic R&D process. A stopping rule for R&D is obtained in terms of a minimum acceptable quality level for the innovation. The dependence of the quality standard upon capital and natural resource stocks and on the state of basic research is analysed.

There exists a unique, non-cooperative equilibrium in output levels for a group of firms which sell differentiated products and are able to practice first degree price discrimination. The equilibrium does not maximize joint profits.

Three mechanisms are considered that extend the standard fixed quantity auction: (I) sole sourcing with output chosen in advance by a buyer with downward-sloping demand; (II) sole sourcing with an output schedule based on revelation of cost parameters; and (III) multiple sourcing with output allocation across suppliers based on revelation of cost parameters. Procedures are characterized for the sole sourcing and multiple sourcing problems that implement the buyer's optimal mechanism.

Monopoly pricing is examined in a general framework with an unknown population distribution of consumer characteristics, downward-sloping, multi-unit consumer demand, and increasing marginal cost. Reference point pricing is introduced and is shown to implement the profit-maximizing allocation. Nonlinear pricing is shown to be approximately optimal for the monopolist as the number of consumers gets large.

The Theory of the Firm presents a path-breaking general framework for understanding the economics of the firm. The book addresses why firms exist, how firms are established, and what contributions firms make to the economy. The book presents a new theoretical analysis of the foundations of microeconomics that makes institutions endogenous. Entrepreneurs play a central economic role by establishing firms. In turn, firms create and operate markets and organizations. The book provides innovative models of economic equilibrium that endogenously determine the structure and function of economic institutions. The book proposes an 'intermediation hypothesis' – the establishment of firms depends on the effects of transaction costs and on the extent of the market.

Networks in Telecommunications addresses fundamental issues in discussions of regulatory policy by offering an integrated framework for understanding the economics and law of networks. It extends theories on network design associated with the mathematics of graph theory, which provides insights into the complex, systemic interrelationship between network components. It also applies the principles of transaction cost economics to analyze decisions about the appropriate boundaries of proprietary network architecture. The book introduces network theory to the study of the economics and law of telecommunications. The discussion opens up the black box of the cost function in telecommunications. The analysis also goes beyond the 'network externalities' approach that focuses primarily on the size of networks. The book highlights the effects of network architecture and the tradeoffs inherent in network design.

This book provides a comprehensive and integrated approach to management strategy that is based on economics. A basic introductory strategy text that integrates economic analysis with management strategy, it takes into account global competition and high-tech (Internet) developments, and recognizes that companies today can no longer expect to sustain competitive advantage but must rely on innovation (of products, processes, and transactions). Although many of the principles are illustrated with numerical examples, the text does not require a background course in economics or mathematics, and does not contain technical graphs or equations. Thus, the book is suitable for undergraduate managerial economics and strategy courses, as well as for introductory MBA courses in business strategy and as a companion to case studies.

Globalization has fundamentally changed the game of business. Strategic frameworks developed for the analysis of purely domestic business necessarily fall short in the international business context. Managers and business students require alternative approaches to understand and cope with these far-reaching changes. We must learn to think globally in order to succeed. Global Competitive Strategy shows how we can do this by providing a unique set of strategic tools for international business. Such tools include the 'star analysis' that allows strategy makers to integrate geographic information with market information about the global business environment. Also introduced is the 'global value connection' that shows managers how to account for the gains from trade and the costs of trade. Aimed at MBA students taking courses in international strategy, consultants and practising managers with responsibility for strategic development, this 2007 book offers a comprehensive strategic framework for gaining competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Famous Fables of Economics critiques some of our most cherished stories of market failure.

This book presents a theory of the firm based on its economic role as an intermediary between customers and suppliers. Professor Spulber demonstrates how the intermediation theory of the firm explains firm formation by showing how they arise in a market equilibrium. In addition, the theory helps explain how markets work by showing how firms select market-clearing prices. Models of intermediation and market microstructure from microeconomics and finance shed considerable light on the formation and market-making activities of firms. The intermediation theory of the firm is compared to existing economic theories of the firm including the neoclassical, industrial organization, transaction cost, and principal-agent models.

This book addresses deregulatory policies that threaten to reduce or destroy the value of private property in network industries without any accompanying payment of just compensation, policies that are termed 'deregulatory takings'. The authors further consider the problem of renegotiation of the regulatory contract, which changes the terms and conditions of operation of utility companies. They argue that constitutional protections of private property from takings, as well as efficient remedies for contractual breach, provide the proper foundation for the competitive transformation of the network industries. The benefits of competition do not stem from government regulations that redistribute income from utility investors to customers, nor do such benefits stem from regulatory policies for network access that promote free riding on incumbent facilities by entrants. Such actions represent a new version of increased regulation, not deregulation.

J. Gregory Sidak and Daniel F. Spulber examine the justifications for the publicly-protected postal monopoly and its public ownership and control. In their economic and legal analysis, the authors demonstrate the need to prevent extension of the postal monopoly into competitive markets. Protecting Competition from the Postal Monopoly raises a fundamental issue--whether Congress' grant of a monopoly to the Postal Service over the delivery of letter mail should be used to restrict or supplant private commerce in other markets.

Regulation and Markets provides the up to date, integrated analysis of regulatory policies and the administrative process that is needed in today's field of regulation economics. The book takes a modern perspective, using the tools of industrial organization and game theory. It is the only unified treatment of the field and combines theoretical models with consideration of public policy issues in the areas of antitrust, price regulation, environmental regulation, product quality, and workplace safety.

The discussion considers both the welfare effects of regulation and the institutional aspects of the administrative regulatory process. Developments in the fields of law and political science have been integrated in a rigorous manner into the economic framework.

Sections of the book address administrative process and market allocation, competition and pricing under increasing returns to scale, administrative regulation of markets, and antitrust enforcement. The conclusion evaluates regulatory policy and deregulation. Extensive literature citations throughout enhance the books value as a reference.