IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joevec/v33y2023i2d10.1007_s00191-023-00808-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Complexity-minded antitrust

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolas Petit

    (European University Institute)

  • Thibault Schrepel

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Abstract

Complexity science permeates the policy spectrum but not antitrust. This is unfortunate. Complexity science provides a high-resolution screen on the empirical realities of markets. And it enables a rich understanding of competition, beyond the reductionist descriptions of markets and firms proposed by neoclassical models and their contemporary neo-Brandeisian critique. New insights arise from the key teachings of complexity science, like feedback loops and the role of uncertainty. The present article lays down the building blocks of a complexity-minded antitrust method.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Petit & Thibault Schrepel, 2023. "Complexity-minded antitrust," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 541-570, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joevec:v:33:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00191-023-00808-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s00191-023-00808-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00191-023-00808-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00191-023-00808-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    2. Axelrod, Robert, 1986. "An Evolutionary Approach to Norms," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1095-1111, December.
    3. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    4. T. W. Swan, 1956. "ECONOMIC GROWTH and CAPITAL ACCUMULATION," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 334-361, November.
    5. Rosenberg,Nathan, 1983. "Inside the Black Box," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521273671.
    6. Magda Fontana, 2010. "The Santa Fe Perspective on economics: emerging patterns in the science of complexity," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 18(2), pages 167-196.
    7. Kirman, Alan, 1989. "The Intrinsic Limits of Modern Economic Theory: The Emperor Has No Clothes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(395), pages 126-139, Supplemen.
    8. Tesfatsion, Leigh S., 2002. "Agent-Based Computational Economics: Growing Economies from the Bottom Up," Staff General Research Papers Archive 5075, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Clark, Kim B., 1985. "The interaction of design hierarchies and market concepts in technological evolution," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 235-251, October.
    10. Anton Pichler & Marco Pangallo & R. Maria del Rio-Chanona & Franc{c}ois Lafond & J. Doyne Farmer, 2020. "Production networks and epidemic spreading: How to restart the UK economy?," Papers 2005.10585, arXiv.org.
    11. De Long, J Bradford, et al, 1990. "Positive Feedback Investment Strategies and Destabilizing Rational Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 379-395, June.
    12. Dosi, Giovanni, 1993. "Technological paradigms and technological trajectories : A suggested interpretation of the determinants and directions of technical change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 102-103, April.
    13. Rammel, Christian & Stagl, Sigrid & Wilfing, Harald, 2007. "Managing complex adaptive systems -- A co-evolutionary perspective on natural resource management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 9-21, June.
    14. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar, 2014. "The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262525429, December.
    15. von Hayek, Friedrich August, 1989. "The Pretence of Knowledge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(6), pages 3-7, December.
    16. Marimon, Ramon & McGrattan, Ellen & Sargent, Thomas J., 1990. "Money as a medium of exchange in an economy with artificially intelligent agents," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 329-373, May.
    17. Giovanni Dosi, 1984. "Technical Change and Industrial Transformation," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-17521-5.
    18. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2007. "Exploring evolutionary economic geographies," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(5), pages 549-571, September.
    19. Maital, S & Grupp, H & Frenkel, A & Koschatzky, K, 1994. "The Relation between the Average Complexity of High-Tech Products and Their Diversity: An Empirical Test of Evolutionary Models," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 273-288, November.
    20. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    21. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), 2010. "The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12864.
    22. Liebowitz, S J & Margolis, Stephen E, 1990. "The Fable of the Keys," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-25, April.
    23. J. Doyne Farmer & Duncan Foley, 2009. "The economy needs agent-based modelling," Nature, Nature, vol. 460(7256), pages 685-686, August.
    24. Koen Frenken, 2006. "Technological innovation and complexity theory," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 137-155.
    25. Sargent, Thomas J., 1993. "Bounded Rationality in Macroeconomics: The Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288695.
    26. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2007. "Exploring Evolutionary Economic Geographies," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 0702, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Apr 2007.
    27. Freeman, Chris, 1994. "The Economics of Technical Change," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(5), pages 463-514, October.
    28. Dosi, Giovanni, 1988. "Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 1120-1171, September.
    29. Giovanni Dosi & Richard R. Nelson, 2000. "An Introduction to Evolutionary Theories in Economics," Chapters, in: Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics, chapter 11, pages 327-346, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    30. Giovanni Dosi, 1984. "Technical Change and Industrial Transformation: The Patterns of Industrial Dynamics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Technical Change and Industrial Transformation, chapter 3, pages 86-217, Palgrave Macmillan.
    31. Atkinson, Anthony B & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1969. "A New View of Technological Change," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 79(315), pages 573-578, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrice Bougette & Oliver Budzinski & Frédéric Marty, 2023. "In the Light of Dynamic Competition: Should We Make Merger Remedies More Flexible?," Working Papers AFED 23-01, Association Francaise d'Economie du Droit (AFED).

    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. Dosi, Giovanni & Nelson, Richard R., 2010. "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 51-127, Elsevier.
    2. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2010. "Generalized Darwinism and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Giovanni Dosi & Richard Nelson, 2013. "The Evolution of Technologies: An Assessment of the State-of-the-Art," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 3(1), pages 3-46, June.
    4. Giorgio Fagiolo & Paul Windrum & Alessio Moneta, 2006. "Empirical Validation of Agent Based Models: A Critical Survey," LEM Papers Series 2006/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    5. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & David L. Rigby, 2015. "The geography and evolution of complex knowledge," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1502, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jan 2015.
    6. Harabi, Najib, 1994. "Technischer Fortschritt in der Schweiz: Empirische Ergebnisse aus industrieökonomischer Sicht [Technischer Fortschritt in der Schweiz:Empirische Ergebnisse aus industrieökonomischer Sicht]," MPRA Paper 6725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Dieter F. Kogler & Ronald B. Davies & Changjun Lee & Keungoui Kim, 2023. "Regional knowledge spaces: the interplay of entry-relatedness and entry-potential for technological change and growth," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 645-668, April.
    8. Ruttan, Vernon W., 1996. "Sources Of Technical Change: Induced Innovation, Evolutionary Theory And Path Dependence," Bulletins 12974, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    9. Giovanni Dosi & Marco Grazzi, 2006. "Technologies as problem-solving procedures and technologies as input--output relations: some perspectives on the theory of production," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 15(1), pages 173-202, February.
    10. Troy Tassier, 2013. "Handbook of Research on Complexity, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Edward Elgar," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 132-133.
    11. Auke Hoekstra & Maarten Steinbuch & Geert Verbong, 2017. "Creating Agent-Based Energy Transition Management Models That Can Uncover Profitable Pathways to Climate Change Mitigation," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-23, December.
    12. Anne Tanner, 2011. "The place of new industries: the case of fuel cell technology and its technological relatedness to regional knowledge bases," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1113, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2011.
    13. Antonio Doria, Francisco, 2011. "J.B. Rosser Jr. , Handbook of Research on Complexity, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK--Northampton, MA, USA (2009) 436 + viii pp., index, ISBN 978 1 84542 089 5 (cased)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 196-204, April.
    14. Paulo Ferreira & Éder J.A.L. Pereira & Hernane B.B. Pereira, 2020. "From Big Data to Econophysics and Its Use to Explain Complex Phenomena," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-10, July.
    15. Antonio D'Agata, 2010. "Endogenous Adaptive Dynamics In Pasinetti Model Of Structural Change," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 333-363, May.
    16. Carolina Castaldi & Giovanni Dosi, 2003. "The Grip of History and the Scope for Novelty: Some Results and Open Questions on Path Dependence in Economic Processes," LEM Papers Series 2003/02, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    17. Mario Coccia, 2006. "Classifications of innovations: Survey and future directions," CERIS Working Paper 200602, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY.
    18. Fernandes, Leonardo H.S. & de Araújo, Fernando H.A. & Silva, Igor E.M. & Neto, Jusie S.P., 2021. "Macroeconophysics indicator of economic efficiency," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 573(C).
    19. Giovanni Dosi, 2012. "Economic Coordination and Dynamics: Some Elements of an Alternative "Evolutionary" Paradigm," LEM Papers Series 2012/08, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    20. Korzinov, Vladimir & Savin, Ivan, 2018. "General Purpose Technologies as an emergent property," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 88-104.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Complexity theory; Antitrust; Evolutionary economics; Feedback loop; Uncertainty; Neoclassical economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - General
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General

    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:spr:joevec:v:33:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00191-023-00808-8. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.