IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/376.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Some Economics of Abuse of Dominance

Author

Listed:
  • John Vickers

Abstract

The paper offers an economic appraisal of selected aspects of EC law and policy towards abuse of dominance (Article 82). After a brief discussion of thresholds for dominance, five theories of exclusionary harm to compeptition are outlined, concerning: predatory pricing, partial exclusion to exploit rivals, divide-and-rule exclusion, leverage of market power, and maintenance of market power. Issues arising in three EC cases on which judgment was given in 2007 are then discussed in the light of these theories: Wanadoo (predatory pricing), British Airways (discounts and rebates), and Microsoft (refusal to supply, tying and bundling). Implications and prospects for the development of better economics-grounded EC law and policy towards abuse of dominance are discussed in conclusion.

Suggested Citation

  • John Vickers, 2007. "Some Economics of Abuse of Dominance," Economics Series Working Papers 376, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:376
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f7621730-d008-4345-b44f-b4c5595ceda7
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1998. "Exclusive Dealing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 64-103, February.
    2. Motta,Massimo, 2004. "Competition Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521016919.
    3. Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1990. "A Theory of Predation Based on Agency Problems in Financial Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 93-106, March.
    4. Rasmusen, Eric B & Ramseyer, J Mark & Wiley, John S, Jr, 1991. "Naked Exclusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1137-1145, December.
    5. Chiara Fumagalli & Massimo Motta, 2006. "Exclusive Dealing and Entry, when Buyers Compete," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 785-795, June.
    6. Whinston, Michael D, 1990. "Tying, Foreclosure, and Exclusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 837-859, September.
    7. John Simpson & Abraham L. Wickelgren, 2007. "Naked Exclusion, Efficient Breach, and Downstream Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1305-1320, September.
    8. Michael D. Whinston, 2001. "Exclusivity and Tying in U.S. v. Microsoft: What We Know, and Don't Know," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 63-80, Spring.
    9. Choi, Jay Pil & Stefanadis, Christodoulos, 2001. "Tying, Investment, and the Dynamic Leverage Theory," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 52-71, Spring.
    10. Dennis W. Carlton & Michael Waldman, 2002. "The Strategic Use of Tying to Preserve and Create Market Power in Evolving Industries," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(2), pages 194-220, Summer.
    11. Rey, Patrick & Tirole, Jean, 2007. "A Primer on Foreclosure," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 2145-2220, Elsevier.
    12. Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 1987. "Contracts as a Barrier to Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 388-401, June.
    13. Jean Tirole, 2005. "The Analysis of Tying Cases: A Primer," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 1.
    14. John Vickers, 2005. "Abuse of Market Power," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(504), pages 244-261, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Klein, Joachim & Zenger, Hans, 2009. "Predatory Exclusive Dealing," Discussion Papers in Economics 10626, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    2. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    3. Dongyeol Lee, 2015. "The Competitive Effect of Exclusive Dealing in the Presence of Renegotiation Breakdown," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(1), pages 25-50, August.
    4. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    5. repec:dpr:wpaper:0918 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Rey, Patrick & Tirole, Jean, 2007. "A Primer on Foreclosure," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 2145-2220, Elsevier.
    7. Chiara Fumagalli & Massimo Motta & Lars Persson, 2009. "On The Anticompetitive Effect Of Exclusive Dealing When Entry By Merger Is Possible," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 785-811, December.
    8. Gavin, Sebnem & Ross, Thomas W., 2018. "Long-term contracts as barriers to entry with differentiated products," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 514-537.
    9. David Spector, 2011. "Exclusive contracts and demand foreclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(4), pages 619-638, December.
    10. Motta, Massimo & Persson, Lars & Fumagalli, Chiara, 2005. "Exclusive Dealing, Entry and Mergers," CEPR Discussion Papers 4902, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Michiel Bijlsma & Viktoria Kocsis & Victoria Shestalova & Gijsbert Zwart, 2008. "Vertical foreclosure: a policy framework," CPB Document 157, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. Jay Pil Choi & Christodoulos Stefanadis, 2018. "Sequential innovation, naked exclusion, and upfront lump-sum payments," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 891-915, June.
    13. Sreya Kolay, 2018. "Tie-in contracts with downstream competition," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 43-77, March.
    14. Mikko Packalen, 2011. "Market Share Exclusion," Working Papers 1103, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2011.
    15. Christos Genakos & Kai‐Uwe Kühn & John Van Reenen, 2018. "Leveraging Monopoly Power by Degrading Interoperability: Theory and Evidence from Computer Markets," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(340), pages 873-902, October.
    16. Jan Boone & Wieland Müller & Sigrid Suetens, 2014. "Naked Exclusion in the Lab: The Case of Sequential Contracting," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 137-166, March.
    17. Motta, Massimo & Karlinger, Liliane, 2007. "Exclusionary Pricing and Rebates When Scale Matters," CEPR Discussion Papers 6258, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Chiara Fumagalli & Massimo Motta, 2013. "A Simple Theory of Predation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 595-631.
    19. Giacomo Calzolari & Vincenzo Denicolò, 2015. "Exclusive Contracts and Market Dominance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3321-3351, November.
    20. Kitamura, Hiroshi & Matsushima, Noriaki & Sato, Misato, 2018. "Exclusive contracts with complementary inputs," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 145-167.
    21. Ordover, Janusz A. & Shaffer, Greg, 2013. "Exclusionary discounts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 569-586.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monopolization; Abuse of Dominance; Predatory Pricing; Tying; Refusal to Supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Pouliquen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.