Paul Seabright | Archive

The Economic Regulation of Broadcasting Markets

The Economic Regulation of Broadcasting Markets: Evolving Technology and Challenges for Policy, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

New technology is revolutionizing broadcasting markets. As the cost of bandwidth processing and delivery fall, information-intensive services that once bore little economic relationship to each other are now increasingly related as substitutes or complements. Television, newspapers, telecoms and the internet compete ever more fiercely for audience attention. At the same time, digital encoding makes it possible to charge prices for content that had previously been broadcast for free. This is creating new markets where none existed before. How should public policy respond? Will competition lead to better services, higher quality and more consumer choice – or to a proliferation of low-quality channels? Will it lead to dominance of the market by a few powerful media conglomerates? Using the insights of modern microeconomics, this book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of these and other issues by investigating the power of regulation to shape and control broadcasting markets.

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Integration and the Regions of Europe

Pontus Brunerhjelm, Riccardo Faini, Victor Norman, Frances Ruane and Paul Seabright, Integration and the Regions of Europe: How the Right Policies can Prevent Polarisation, Center for Economic Policy Research, London, 2000.

This report analyses how the geographic pattern of production and employment in Europe will be affected by market integration, increased direct investment, more mobile financial capital and a sharper, global division of labour. The authors then trace the implications of such changes for local policy (local tax, expenditure and industrial policy) and finally discuss how the subsidiary principle should be implemented to ensure that local policies contribute to overall economic efficiency and other common goals.

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The Vanishing Rouble

Paul Seabright, The Vanishing Rouble: Barter Networks and Non-Monetary Transactions in Post-Soviet Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. Edited by Paul Seabright.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the transition process in the former Soviet Union has been the extent to which the economy has effectively become demonetized in recent years. At the time of Russia’s financial crisis of 1998 it was estimated that up to 70% of industrial output was being exchanged for barter. This book provides an accessible and authoritative analysis of barter in the former Soviet Union, addressing such questions as: What has brought about this demonetization and why have we not seen the same phenomenon on a widespread scale in central and eastern Europe? Does the nature of demonetization cast light on what underpins monetary transactions in industrial societies? What are the consequences for output and growth? Should the state intervene and how? Does the network character of many non-monetary transactions have implications for the role and value of social networks in complex modern societies?

Contributors: Paul Seabright, Jayasri Dutta, Canice Prendergast, Lars Stole, Caroline Humphrey, Alena Ledeneva, Simon Commander, Christian Mummsen, Sergei Guriev, Barry W. Ickes, Simon Clarke, Dalia Marin, Daniel Kaufmann, Bogdan Gorochowskij, Wendy Carlin, Steven Fries, Mark Schaffer, David G. Anderson, Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov

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Trawling for Minnows

Damien Neven, Pénélope Papandropoulos and Paul Seabright, Trawling for Minnows: European Competition Policy and Agreements between Firms, Center for Economic Policy Research, London, 1998.

This report examines the policy of the European Union towards agreements on competition between firms. The report looks at the EU’s policy from three perspectives.

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Competition Policy and the Transformation of Central Europe

John Fingleton, Eleanor Fox, Damien Neven and Paul Seabright, Competition Policy and the Transformation of Central Europe, Center for Economic Policy Research, London, 1996.

This book examines the implementation of competition policy during the 1990s in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech and Slovak Republics. It looks at the economic predicament of countries in transition, considering how far this has required the state to actively police the competitive process. It assesses the extent to which initial economic and political conditions have constrained the involvement of the state in such activity. It then analyzes the statutes of the countries and the structure of the institutions established to implement competition policy. A comprehensive discussion of the case law and the experience of policy in practice is used to suggest lessons for the task of competition policy, both in these countries and in others undergoing the transition from central planning. This book will be valuable not just for those interested in competition policy but for all students of the political economy of transition.

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Merger in Daylight

Damien Neven, Robin Nuttall and Paul Seabright, Merger in Daylight: the Economics and Politics of European Merger Control, Center for Economic Policy Research, London, 1993.

In 1989 the European Council of Ministers approved a Regulation establishing a new system of merger control for the European Community. This is the first independent review of the EC Merger Regulation and has wide implications for other issues such as regulatory capture and transparency. It uses the latest research methodology from economics to analyse the decisions taken by the Commission and also reports a detailed survey of firms which have submitted merger proposals and the law firms that have advised them. The full text of the Regulation is reprinted along with summary statistics for all of the cases investigated up to the end of March 1993. Economists, lawyers, and practitioners in the business and policy communities concerned with regulation and merger policy will need this book.

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‘I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the political economy of merger control in the EC and in the US. The authors show clear mastery of complex legal issues that underpin merger control, and offer an up-to-date and highly readable guide through the policy thicket.’ (Janusz Ordover, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice).