IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepsps/20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Interoperability and Market Foreclosure In the European Microsoft Case

Author

Listed:
  • Kai Uwe Kühn
  • John Van Reenen

Abstract

In this paper we discuss some of the most important economic issues raised in European Commission vs. Microsoft (2004) concerning the market for work group servers. In our view, the most important economic issues relate to (a) foreclosure incentives and (b) innovation effects of the proposed remedy. We discuss the economic basis for the Commission's claims that Microsoft had incentives to exclude rivals in the work group server market through degrading the interoperability of their server operating systems with Windows. We also examine the impact of compulsory disclosure of information on interoperability and argue that the effects on innovation are not unambiguously negative as Microsoft claim. We conclude with some general implications of the case for anti-trust enforcement in high innovation sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai Uwe Kühn & John Van Reenen, 2008. "Interoperability and Market Foreclosure In the European Microsoft Case," CEP Reports 20, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepsps:20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/special/cepsp20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernard Reddy & David Evans & Albert Nichols & Richard Schmalensee, 2001. "A Monopolist Would Still Charge More for Windows: A Comment on Werden," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 18(3), pages 263-268, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Jerry Hausman & Gregory Leonard & J. Douglas Zona, 1994. "Competitive Analysis with Differentiated Products," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 34, pages 143-157.
    4. repec:adr:anecst:y:1994:i:34:p:06 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Whinston, Michael D, 1990. "Tying, Foreclosure, and Exclusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 837-859, 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. Ari Bronsoler & Joseph Doyle & John Van Reenen, 2021. "The impact of healthcare IT on clinical quality, productivity and workers," CEP Discussion Papers dp1801, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Sjaak Hurkens & Doh-Shin Jeon & Domenico Menicucci, 2019. "Dominance and Competitive Bundling," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 1-33, August.
    3. Seifert, Jacob, 2013. "Compulsory Licensing, Innovation and Welfare," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79778, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

    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. 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.
    2. Marie-Noëlle Calès & Laurent Granier & Nadège Marchand, 2012. "Competition between Clearing Houses on the European Market," Post-Print halshs-00959121, HAL.
    3. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2009. "Bundling and Competition for Slots: On the Portfolio Effects of Bundling," IDEI Working Papers 574, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised Jul 2011.
    4. Oliver Budzinski & Katharina Wacker, 2007. "The Prohibition Of The Proposed Springer-Prosiebensat.1 Merger: How Much Economics In German Merger Control?," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 281-306.
    5. Joseph Farrell & Michael L. Katz, 2000. "Innovation, Rent Extraction, and Integration in Systems Markets," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 413-432, December.
    6. Jihui Chen & Qiang Fu, 2017. "Do exclusivity arrangements harm consumers?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 311-339, June.
    7. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    8. Alexei Alexandrov & Özlem Bedre-Defolie, 2014. "The Equivalence of Bundling and Advance Sales," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 259-272, March.
    9. 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.
    10. Zhou, Jidong, 2021. "Mixed bundling in oligopoly markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    11. Fumagalli, Chiara & Motta, Massimo, 2020. "Tying in evolving industries, when future entry cannot be deterred," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    12. Choi, Jay Pil & Jeon, Doh-Shin, 2016. "A Leverage Theory of Tying in Two-Sided Markets," TSE Working Papers 16-689, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Oct 2019.
    13. Andrea Greppi & Domenico Menicucci, 2021. "On Bundling and Entry Deterrence," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 58(4), pages 561-581, June.
    14. Choi, Jay Pil, 2003. "Bundling new products with old to signal quality, with application to the sequencing of new products," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1179-1200, October.
    15. Halmenschlager, Christine & Mantovani, Andrea, 2017. "On the private and social desirability of mixed bundling in complementary markets with cost savings," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 45-59.
    16. Qianbo Yin & Baojun Jiang & Sean Xiang Zhou, 2023. "Effects of consumers' context‐dependent preferences on product bundling," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(6), pages 1674-1691, June.
    17. Rochet, Jean Charles & Tirole, Jean, 2008. "Tying in two-sided markets and the honor all cards rule," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1333-1347, November.
    18. Richard J. Gilbert & Michael L. Katz, 2001. "An Economist's Guide to U.S. v. Microsoft," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 25-44, Spring.
    19. Kenneth S. Corts, 2018. "How the source of the entrant's advantage limits entry‐deterring tying," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(2), pages 510-527, May.
    20. Gastón Llanes & Andrea Mantovani & Francisco Ruiz-Aliseda, 2019. "Entry into Complementary Good Markets with Network Effects," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 262-282, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    leverage; interoperability; abuse of a dominant position; innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies

    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:cep:cepsps:20. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/special-reports/ .

    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.