Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke —

In a series of papers published in the last two years, Ezrachi and Stucke explored the world of big data and artificial intelligence and argued that network effects can raise barriers to entry, enabling big platforms to engage in behaviors such as collusion, tacit collusion, and price discrimination, to the detriment of consumers. Their recent book Virtual Competition (Harvard University Press, 2016) explores the changing nature of competition in the age of big data and algorithms.

In a brief interview with ProMarket, Ezrachi and Stucke shared some thoughts on market power and the digital economy.... 

ProMarket
“Our New Economy Enables the Winners to Capture Much More of the Welfare”

Ariel Ezrachi, Slaughter and May Professor of Competition Law, a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Director of the University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy; and Maurice Stucke, a co-founder of the law firm the Konkurrenz Group and law professor at the University of Tennessee

Diane Coyle — The platform era

Should be aware of. Platforms and platform-based markets are the foundation of the digital economy. Platform creation is the new entrepreneurship and it's already created a number of young billionaires.

The Enlightened Economist
The platform era
Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

Shane Greenstein — Open Letter on the Digital Economy

No Luddites.

We are in the early stages of an era of great technological change. Digital innovations are remaking our industries, economy, and society just as steam, electricity, and internal combustion did before them. Like their predecessors, computers and their kin are engines of great prosperity. Progress with hardware, software, and networks is improving our lives in countless ways and creating immense value. To take just a few examples, advances in artificial intelligence are helping doctors diagnose disease; new sensors are making it possible to drive cars more safely; digitization is delivering knowledge and entertainment more widely than ever; and mobile networks are interconnecting the planet’s population for the first time ever. The digital revolution is the best economic news on the planet.

But the evidence is clear that this progress is accompanied by some thorny challenges. The majority of US households have seen little if any income growth for over 20 years, the percentage of national income that’s paid out in wages has declined sharply in the US since 2000, and the American middle class, which is one of our country’s great creations, is being hollowed out. Outsourcing and offshoring have contributed to these phenomena, but we should keep in mind that the recent wave of globalization is itself reliant on advances in information and communication technologies. The fundamental facts are that we’re living in an ever-more digital and interlinked world, and the benefits of this technological surge have been very uneven. 

Previous surges brought with them greatly increased demand for labor and sustained job and wage growth. This time around, the evidence is causing some people to wonder if things are different. Or, to paraphrase many recent headlines, will robots eat our jobs? 

We think this is the wrong question, because it assumes that we are powerless to alter or shape the effects of technological change on labor.
We reject this idea. 

Instead, we believe that there’s a great deal we can do to improve prospects for everyone. We propose a three-pronged effort....

Digitopoly
Open Letter on the Digital Economy
Shane Greenstein
ht Mark Thoma at Economist's View