Unit 3 Micro: Samsung and LG fined for price fixing
As A2 microeconomists approach their Unit 3 exam, they need to make sure they have good examples to support their analytical theory and should therefore be interested in the news from South Korea where the antitrust regulator has fined Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics for conspiring to fix the prices of some appliances.
The regulator said the two firms held secret meetings in 2008 and 2009 to agree on prices for washing machines, flat-panel TVs and laptop computers and has fined Samsung 25.8bn won, while LG was fined 18.8bn won. A nice relevant example of collusion, price fixing and the government’s response to this anti-competitive behaviour
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopoly and Duopoly in Bus Markets
The UK Competition Commission has published an important report into the market structure of local and regional bus services in the UK, twenty five years after the industry was deregulated and largely privatised. Coverage of the report can be found here (BBC news).
Largely as a result of a long-term process of consolidation through merger and acquisition, the UK bus industry is found to be highly concentrated with five businesses dominating the sector even though more than 1,200 businesses provides services.
The five largest operators (Arriva, FirstGroup, Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach) carry 70 per cent of those passengers. The CC also found that head-to-head competition between operators is un-common and that-on average-the largest operator in an urban area runs 69 per cent of local bus services - effectively a monopoly position.
Unit 3 Micro: Patent Wars- A Touchy Subject for Apple
This excellent news piece from Ben Cohen at Channel 4 looks at the increasingly aggressive patent war being fought by the manufacturers of the world’s leading mobile phone and tablet devices - the most profitable products in the digital economy. “Where once the giants (Google and Apple) competed on features, they now compete on patents.”
The news feature looks in particular at the intellectual property surrounding the slide-screen technology used by millions to unlock a device. Apple claims the IP to this but a video tracked back to twenty years ago suggests that developers were already thinking of something remarkably similar long before the iPhone came into existence. Can the makers of Android defend legal claims from Apple that their IP has been infringed? And who will end up paying for the enormous legal fees and possible extra licencing costs?
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Unit 3 Micro: Tacit Collusion in the Supermarket
What do students make of the current price match / big price drop schemes offered by many of the leading food retailers in the UK?
On the surface the brand price match scheme shown in the picture below looks like a good deal for consumers in this time of financial hardship and distress.
But what it this ‘parallel pricing’ serves merely as a form of tacit collusion with prices on a range of products actually higher than they might be without the facade of price comparisons and discount voucher compensation?
Unit 3 Micro: Brand Loyalty in Mobile Phones
Brand loyalty is hugely important in all kinds of industries and markets. The costs of acquiring a new customer vastly outweigh the expense of selling more to existing buyers and most of the mobile phone suppliers in this oligopolistic industry focus an enormous effort in building brand identity and brand loyalty to reduce the rate of customer churn (people who switch brands).
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Patent Wars might Stifle Innovation
In this six minute piece, Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC looks at the surge in legal actions concerning alleged patent infringements. Intellectual property lawyers are making huge sums from the trend but small and medium sized enterprises especially in technology spaces might have less scope, freedom and resources to innovate as a result.
Unit 3 Micro: Examples of Price Discrimination in Action
I tweeted earlier on today asking economics teaching colleagues what examples they like to use when teaching the topic of price discrimination under conditions of monopoly / imperfect competition. Thank you to everyone who contributed!
Unit 3 Micro: Price Discrimination in the E-Book Market
Seth Godin’s Domino Project is an attempt to re-fashion the way in which e-books are published, sold and priced. This blog is particularly interesting for teachers and students who consider different forms of price discrimination. It proposes (at least) three different price tiers:
$1.99 ebooks - a clearing price for the majority of e-books
$5 ebooks. This is the price for bestsellers, hot titles and academic titles required by courses
$10 - $20 ebooks. This is the price you will pay to get the book first, to get it fast, to get it before everyone else
What do you think? How do you see e-book pricing tactics evolving as the market grows? The UK Office of Fair Trading is currently investigating the market for e-books in the UK amid allegations of price fixing / collusion by several leading publishers. You can access the OFT investigation using this link.
Further reading:
Guardian (August 2011): Apple and major publishers face lawsuit over ebook ‘price fixing’
Telegraph: EU raids publishers in ebook price-fixing probe
By way of background - new research has found that the average e-book price of front-list e-books across the world was €10.50 net of taxes. The average price of UK frontlist e-books was €10.80, €1.50 more than equivalent US titles, but less than those in Germany, Spain and France.
Unit 3 Micro: Tesco Behaving Badly - Price Anchoring
On paper, it sounds like a totally reasonable price strategy from the market leader in an oligopolistic market - after announcing their worst sales figures in nearly 20 years, Tesco’s came out with a price cut promotion “The Big Price Drop”. The supermarket – which has pledged to spend £500 million on the high-profile promotion – has promised customers that it would reduce the price of 3,000 essential products across its stores.
read more...»Collusion in the Classroom
Today we played a variety of ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ games with my U6th economists, highlighting the game theory element of oligopolistic markets. (A nice mix of collusion between the pupils was apparent, coupled with the usual cheating on agreements and back-stabbing – always fun to have in the classroom!)
read more...»Unit 3 Micro: Amazon launches the Kindle Fire
In the increasingly competitive and contestable market for tablet devices, leading online retailer Amazon has launched the Kindle Fire.
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Unit 3 Micro: You Sue, I Sue - Patent Wars Explode!
The scale of the legal battles between different businesses in the mobile industry might just be unprecedented. This nifty graphic from the iDownload blog provides an overview of the complex web of litigation - a lawyer’s dream! But if Samsung succeed in delaying the release of the iPhone5 then what might become of their reputation with millions of consumers worldwide? An Indian Summer hat tip to Graham Carter for flagging up this visual.
Slicing up the Apple - globalisation graphic
This lovely graphic from the Economist gives a visual picture of some of the forces of globalisation at play in the manufacture of the iPhone. I was particularly surprised by the contribution to components by Samsung, which is also one of Apple’s main competitors in the Smart Phone market. There are also some useful stats underneath the graphic which would be great in a lesson where concentration ratios and market structures are being introduced.
Slicing up the Apple - globalisation graphic
This lovely graphic from the Economist gives a visual picture of some of the forces of globalisation at play in the manufacture of the iPhone. I was particularly surprised by the contribution to components by Samsung, which is also one of Apple’s main competitors in the Smart Phone market. There are also some useful stats underneath the graphic which would be great in a lesson where concentration ratios and market structures are being introduced.
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopsony - Dairy Losses Drive Farmers from the Fields
Hats off to the herd! Milk production in the UK is expanding yet many dairy farmers have or are likely to leave the industry over the next five years unless raw milk production becomes more economically viable. Can the stakeholders in the sector reach fresh agreement on sustainable contracts for the near 40 million litres of milk produced every day?
read more...»The Future of Food Retailing? Tesco in South Korea
Here is a fascinating short video on the techniques and tactics adopted by Tesco as they sought to become South Korea’s number one offline and online food retail store.
A2 Micro: Competition Policy
The aim of competition policy is promote competition; make markets work better and contribute towards improved efficiency in individual markets and enhanced competitiveness of UK businesses within the European Union single market.
read more...»A2 Micro: Oligopoly and Collusion
Collusive behaviour is thought to be a common feature of many oligopolistic markets. Collusion is often explained by a desire to achieve joint-profit maximisation within a market or prevent price and revenue instability in an industry.
read more...»A2 Micro: Oligopoly
An oligopoly is a market dominated by a few producers. An oligopoly is an industry where there is a high level of market concentration. Examples of markets that can be described as oligopolies include the markets for petrol in the UK, soft drinks producers and the major high street banks. Another example is the global market for sports footwear – 60% of which is held by Nike and Adidas. However, oligopoly is best defined by the conduct (or behaviour) of firms within a market.
read more...»A2 Micro: Monopsony Power in Markets
Monopsony is an important idea in economics but not often discussed in the media – indeed there were only six references to it in the Financial Times between 2003 and 2009! But for economists wanting to understand changes in the balance of power between buyers and sellers in different markets and how this affects prices, profit margins and incentives, it is important to have an understanding of monopsony and its effects. At A2 level you will not be expected to use diagrams to show the impact of monopsony power in product markets.
read more...»A2 Micro: The Importance of Profit
Profit measures the return to risk when committing scarce resources to a market or industry. Entrepreneurs take risks for which they require an adequate rate of return. The higher the market risk and the longer they expect to have to wait to earn a positive return, the greater will be the minimum required return that an entrepreneur is likely to demand. Economists distinguish between different types of profit – explained below:
read more...»A2 Micro: Market Structure, Conduct & Performance
This updated revision presentation is designed to help students preparing for markets-related topics on A2 economics specifications.
Market Structure Conduct & Performance - revision presentation
Download printable (pdf) slide handout
read more...»Some light relief from revision - this week’s economics TV
Here is a selection of this week’s TV (and a bit of radio) that seems to have some good economics content and might provide a welcome, yet useful, break from revision.
Sunday 15th May: BBC4 8pm, ‘The Secret Life of the National Grid’ - could be worth a look in terms of economies of scale, network externalities, economic growth and the importance of infrastructure
Sunday 15th May: Radio 4 8pm, ‘The Bankers and the Bottom Billion’ - possibly some useful bits in terms of development economics
Monday 16th May: BBC1 8.30pm, ‘Panorama’ - this week’s investigative documentary looks at the illegal trade in waste electronic products following the introduction of regulations governing how we can dispose of such things - probably very good in terms of analysing a type of government failure
Monday 16th May: BBC1 9pm, ‘The Street That Cut Everything’ - looks rather entertaining as well as providing a bit of an insight into topics such as government spending on public goods and goods that generate positive externalities
Monday 16th May: BBC4 9pm, ‘The Golden Age of Canals’ - whilst at first glance this may not seem too appealing, I suspect there are some interesting nuggets in terms of networks and infrastructure spending, as well as a look at why canals fell into obsolence due to the invention of the combustion engine (some creative destruction here!)
Tuesday 17th May: BBC3 9pm, ‘Secrets of the Superbrands: Technology’ - a good look at how monopolies put up strategic barriers to entry in terms of branding and smart use of technology to achieve consumer loyalty
Thursday 19th May: ITV1 7.30pm, ‘The True Cost of a Car’ - a look at the impact on motorists of rising fuel prices and insurance premiums, which will bring in cross-elasticity of demand in a roundabout way
Thursday 19th May: Radio 4, 8pm, ‘The Report’ - a closer look at the operation of supermarkets and why there is opposition to their expansion (useful for looking at the impact of rising market power)
Friday 20th May: BBC2 7pm, ‘Wind Farm Wars’ - probably very useful for those sitting AS Unit 1 this summer in terms of negative and positive externalities of production, and the ins and outs of cost-benefit analysis
Hopefully there’s some light relief in there for everyone! All of the BBC programmes will be available on iPlayer for several days after they’ve been broadcast.
A2 Micro: Innovation in Markets
This is a revision presentation covering aspects of innovation in markets. A PDF version of the presentation designed as a handout can be downloaded here.
read more...»Smartphones and Creative Destruction
Is the multi-function and ubiquitous smartphone one of the best examples of creative destruction. This article “10 Things Killed by the Smartphone” points to a clutch of devices and products whose demand has been affected by the mass volumes of data-heavy smartphones that now dominate the market.
MP3 Players
Nintendo 3DS and Sony PSP
Point-and-Shoot Cameras
Personal Video Players
Voice Recorders
Portable GPS Navigation Devices
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
Wristwatch
iPod Nano
Paper Maps
Telephone Directory Assistance
Soap powder cartel leaves stain on colluders
The EU Competition Commission got into a LATHER about alleged price fixing by a number of multinational soap and washing powder producers and in a ruling today they have imposed fines on Unilever and Procter & Gamble €315.2m ($456m) for fixing washing powder prices in eight countries within the single market. An investigation was prompted by whistle-blowing from Henkel, a German competitor (manufacturer of Persil) and so the investigation CYCLE began. Unilever was fined €104m and Procter & Gamble was fined €211.2m. Henkel was not WHITER THAN WHITE but under EU cartel rules, it avoided a hefty fine because of alerting the authorities to the price fixing scheme.
read more...»Information Empires and Monopolies
This edited eleven minute video from the RSA explores the rise of information monopolies - from the telephone to films and now the internet. Leading technological historian Timothy Wu exposes the battle for the soul of the internet. he has some pertinent things to say about how the preferences of consumers (a growing desire and willingness to pay for higher quality, filtering, reliability, brand) might actually reinforce the natural tendencies of industries that start out open, flourishing and diversified to consolidate into a controlling monopoly or an oligopoly.
Will Google and Apple come to dominate to a much greater degree? For Wu one of the signs to look out for with these types of companies is whether the balance tips between innovation and defensive behaviour.
A2 Micro: Updates on Competition Issues
Here are some links to recent news stories on competition and monopoly issues in the UK and the EU Single Market
read more...»Timetric: Internet Browser Market Shares
Timetric update the latest figures for market share in the web browser market - they are shown in the chart below. Internet Explorer continues the long slow slide as rival browsers become more popular and web users reveal their preferences!
read more...»Information Failures: Broadband Market
“Confusion is rife and millions of people are not getting what they have been sold” - a damming indictment of the retail broadband market in the UK exposed here by Rory Cellan Jones in a BBC news article and supporting video clip detailing information failures regarding high speed broadband and the dubious ‘up to x mb/s’ adverts that typically only 3% of UK customers experience…a stronger hand from OFCOM is needed to address this information issue. A hat tip to Henry Wingfield for spotting the article.
