Applying Antitrust in Digital Markets

Mark Jamison, University of Florida is Applying Antitrust in Digital Markets.

ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes antitrust principles in the context of digital markets, i.e., areas of the economy where resources are obtained and managed, and value is created primarily through the use of digital technologies. It demonstrates that traditional notions of market power are inadequate for these situations because markets lose boundaries, data used to identify markets and market power decays before it can give meaningful answers, and rivalry occurs across markets. It identifies an alternative approach – resource flow – that focuses on root causes of what has been traditionally called market power. An institution can be considered to be able to avoid competitive pressures when resources flows needed to provide such pressures are throttled, either by inadequate sources or by channel constraints. The paper explores the implications of such throttling being created by firms, occurring through nature, or created by government.