The Market Power of Technology

The Market Power of Technology PDF Author: Mordecai Kurz
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231556527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Since the 1980s, the United States has regressed to a level of economic inequality not seen since the Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, technological innovation has transformed society, and a core priority of public policy has been promoting innovation. What is the relationship between economic inequality and technological change? Mordecai Kurz develops a comprehensive integrated theory of the dynamics of market power and income inequality. He shows that technological innovations are not simply sources of growth and progress: they sow the seeds of market power. In a free market economy with intellectual property rights, firms’ control over technology enables them to expand, attain monopoly power, and earn exorbitant profits. Competition among innovators does not eliminate market power because technological competition is different from standard competition; it results in only one or two winners. Kurz provides a pioneering analysis grounded on quantifying technological market power and its effects on inequality, innovation, and economic growth. He outlines what causes market power to rise and fall and details its macroeconomic and distributional consequences. Kurz demonstrates that technological market power tends to rise, increasing inequality of income and wealth. Unchecked inequality threatens the foundations of democracy: public policy is the only counterbalancing force that can restrain corporate power, attain more egalitarian distribution of wealth, and make democracy compatible with capitalism. Presenting a new paradigm for understanding today’s vast inequalities, this book offers detailed proposals to redress them by restricting corporate mergers and acquisitions, reforming patent law, improving the balance of power in the labor market, increasing taxation, promoting upward mobility, and stabilizing the middle class.

The Market Power of Technology

The Market Power of Technology PDF Author: Mordecai Kurz
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231556527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the 1980s, the United States has regressed to a level of economic inequality not seen since the Gilded Age in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, technological innovation has transformed society, and a core priority of public policy has been promoting innovation. What is the relationship between economic inequality and technological change? Mordecai Kurz develops a comprehensive integrated theory of the dynamics of market power and income inequality. He shows that technological innovations are not simply sources of growth and progress: they sow the seeds of market power. In a free market economy with intellectual property rights, firms’ control over technology enables them to expand, attain monopoly power, and earn exorbitant profits. Competition among innovators does not eliminate market power because technological competition is different from standard competition; it results in only one or two winners. Kurz provides a pioneering analysis grounded on quantifying technological market power and its effects on inequality, innovation, and economic growth. He outlines what causes market power to rise and fall and details its macroeconomic and distributional consequences. Kurz demonstrates that technological market power tends to rise, increasing inequality of income and wealth. Unchecked inequality threatens the foundations of democracy: public policy is the only counterbalancing force that can restrain corporate power, attain more egalitarian distribution of wealth, and make democracy compatible with capitalism. Presenting a new paradigm for understanding today’s vast inequalities, this book offers detailed proposals to redress them by restricting corporate mergers and acquisitions, reforming patent law, improving the balance of power in the labor market, increasing taxation, promoting upward mobility, and stabilizing the middle class.

The Profit Paradox

The Profit Paradox PDF Author: Jan Eeckhout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691224293
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A pioneering account of the surging global tide of market power—and how it stifles workers around the world In an era of technological progress and easy communication, it might seem reasonable to assume that the world’s working people have never had it so good. But wages are stagnant and prices are rising, so that everything from a bottle of beer to a prosthetic hip costs more. Economist Jan Eeckhout shows how this is due to a small number of companies exploiting an unbridled rise in market power—the ability to set prices higher than they could in a properly functioning competitive marketplace. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research and telling the stories of common workers throughout, he demonstrates how market power has suffocated the world of work, and how, without better mechanisms to ensure competition, it could lead to disastrous market corrections and political turmoil. The Profit Paradox describes how, over the past forty years, a handful of companies have reaped most of the rewards of technological advancements—acquiring rivals, securing huge profits, and creating brutally unequal outcomes for workers. Instead of passing on the benefits of better technologies to consumers through lower prices, these “superstar” companies leverage new technologies to charge even higher prices. The consequences are already immense, from unnecessarily high prices for virtually everything, to fewer startups that can compete, to rising inequality and stagnating wages for most workers, to severely limited social mobility. A provocative investigation into how market power hurts average working people, The Profit Paradox also offers concrete solutions for fixing the problem and restoring a healthy economy.

Innovation Matters

Innovation Matters PDF Author: Richard J. Gilbert
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026235862X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A proposal for moving from price-centric to innovation-centric competition policy, reviewing theory and available evidence on economic incentives for innovation. Competition policy and antitrust enforcement have traditionally focused on prices rather than innovation. Economic theory shows the ways that price competition benefits consumers, and courts, antitrust agencies, and economists have developed tools for the quantitative evaluation of price impacts. Antitrust law does not preclude interventions to encourage innovation, but over time the interpretation of the laws has raised obstacles to enforcement policies for innovation. In this book, economist Richard Gilbert proposes a shift from price-centric to innovation-centric competition policy. Antitrust enforcement should be concerned with protecting incentives for innovation and preserving opportunities for dynamic, rather than static, competition. In a high-technology economy, Gilbert argues, innovation matters.

The Pursuit of Power

The Pursuit of Power PDF Author: William H. McNeill
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022616019X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In this magnificent synthesis of military, technological, and social history, William H. McNeill explores a whole millennium of human upheaval and traces the path by which we have arrived at the frightening dilemmas that now confront us. McNeill moves with equal mastery from the crossbow—banned by the Church in 1139 as too lethal for Christians to use against one another—to the nuclear missile, from the sociological consequences of drill in the seventeenth century to the emergence of the military-industrial complex in the twentieth. His central argument is that a commercial transformation of world society in the eleventh century caused military activity to respond increasingly to market forces as well as to the commands of rulers. Only in our own time, suggests McNeill, are command economies replacing the market control of large-scale human effort. The Pursuit of Power does not solve the problems of the present, but its discoveries, hypotheses, and sheer breadth of learning do offer a perspective on our current fears and, as McNeill hopes, "a ground for wiser action."

Economics of Electricity

Economics of Electricity PDF Author: Anna Cretì
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107185653
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Explains the economics of electricity at each step of the supply chain: production, transportation and distribution, and retail.

Market Structure and Technological Change

Market Structure and Technological Change PDF Author: William Lee Baldwin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
First Published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Market Structure and Technological Change

Market Structure and Technological Change PDF Author: W. Baldwin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136458298
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
This book provides a survey of the theory and of the empirical knowledge about the links between market structure and technological change.

Market Power Effects of Technology-forcing Regulation

Market Power Effects of Technology-forcing Regulation PDF Author: David Selkirk Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description


Production Technology, Market Power, and the Decline of the Labor Share

Production Technology, Market Power, and the Decline of the Labor Share PDF Author: Agustin Velasquez
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
The labor share has been declining in the United States, and especially so in manufacturing. This paper investigates the role of capital accumulation and market power in explaining this decline. I first estimate the production function of 21 manufacturing sectors along time series and including time-varying markups. The elasticities of substitution for most sectors are estimated below one, implying that capital deepening cannot explain the labor share decline. I then track the long-run evolution of the labor share using the estimated production technology parameters. I decompose aggregate labor share changes into sector re-weights, capital-labor substitution, and market power effects. I find that the increase in market power, as reported in recent studies, can account for, at least, 76 percent of the labor share decline in manufacturing. Absent the rise in market power, the labor share would have remained constant in the second half of the 20th century.

Essays in Technology Management and Policy

Essays in Technology Management and Policy PDF Author: David J. Teece
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9789810244477
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
This book examines the manner in which successful firms develop, transfer, protect, and capture value from technological innovation. In essence, it is about ?knowledge management?, which lies at the foundation of firm level competitive advantage in today's global economy. The essays contain some of the fundamental contributions to the field of knowledge management by one of its best-known thinkers; they also constitute an immensely practical guide for those managers who wish to look below the surface of what is going on in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.