The majority of industrial organizations literature on network externalities looks at firm behavior under given market characteristics. The present paper instead asks the question whether the presence of network externalities can change market characteristics, specifically, whether an initially...

This paper gives a survey of the current state of competition in the German Broadband access market. Existing regulations and their impact on the deployment of high-speed Internet access are evaluated. It is argued that facilities-based competition is preferable to open-network regulations. The...

The majority of industrial organizations literature on network externalities looks at firm behavior under given market characteristics. The present paper instead asks the question whether the presence of network externalities can change market characteristics, specifically, whether an initially...

This paper provides an overview of telecommunications regulation in the U.S. and in Europe. For each region the history of telecommunications regulations as well as the current regulatory regime is portrayed. The focus of this overview is on the question of how unbundling regulations in the...

The paper focuses on the cost characteristics of Internet technology and on the question whether there are monopolistic bottlenecks in Internet services which justify regulatory intervention into the market. The analysis is prompted by a discussion which followed the MCI and Worldcom merger in...

Increasing investment in innovation has been a major goal of research and innovation policy in Europe over the past decade. Yet to secure competitive advantage and achieve growth, R&D investment has to be translated into successful innovations, and this is first and foremost the task of firms....

Public intervention in the automotive industry has a long, global history. In Europe, both, individual member states and the European Union (EU), often allocate public resources to automobile manufacturers through a wide variety of instruments and institutions. This willingness to offer support...