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This study examines the impacts of the Ethiopian developmental state model on the competition, efficiency and profitability of banks.

The competition, efficiency and profitability of the Ethiopian bank are measured using Panzar Rose, data envelopment analysis and financial ratio. Fixed-effect panel regression methods are applied to test the direction and strength of association between the Ethiopian developmental state model and the competition, efficiency and profitability of the country's banks while controlling bank-specific market structure and macroeconomic factors.

The Ethiopian developmental state model embeds the state-directed financial system, which affects the banking industry using a range of credit allocation instruments. Of which, directed credit schemes, interest rate control and the lack of financial freedom reduce the competition and efficiency of banks. The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) advances to the government and the sale of Treasury bills to a captive market enhances banking competition while negatively affecting banking efficiency. Interest rate control and the lack of financial freedom lower banking profitability. Unexpectedly, directed credit schemes improve banking profitability.

As with any study, this one has limitations. The intra-period comparison of efficiency is based on balanced data. Future studies can use methods that can measure the efficiency of banks using unbalanced data. The computation of the yearly H-statistic is constrained by the small sample size. The use of high-frequency data for measuring competition can provide us with better insights into banking competition in Ethiopia. Furthermore, there are a number of methods for measuring banking competition, efficiency and profitability with different assumptions. Approaching the subject of this study by applying different methods will offer different insights.

The contributions of this study to practice are at two levels. First, at the policy level, it enhances our understanding of the impacts of developmental state model policies, as implemented in Ethiopia, on the banking industry and therefore provides suggestions to policymakers to reform the sector's policies. Second, it offers input to the management of banks regarding the factors that impact the industry.

The banking industry is often studied in the context of financial liberalisation. The originality of this study lies in investigating how the competition, efficiency and profitability of banks are affected when operating in the context of significant state interventions in the industry.

Explore the effects of competition policy on an important competitive dimension of digital platforms, namely quality.

The deterrence effect of competition policy should induce firms to compete on merits, with lower prices and higher quality for consumers. Deterrence, or the inducement not to infringe competition law, may depend on the harshness of penalties and/or the likelihood of conviction. We use competition policy indicators that are associated with these deterrence dimensions, allowing for non-linearities and interactions of the indicators. We use a unique data survey of digital gig platform users, that covers at least two dozen platforms and more than 50 countries. Quality is measured using multidimensional indicators of the level of satisfaction of platform users with different platform services. We control for platform user and country characteristics, including other regulatory indicators such as labor laws, to recover different effects.

Results suggest that competition policy is relevant for differences in product quality across platforms and countries. Important non-linearities are uncovered, where substantive rules of competition policy interact with competition authority power. The effects depend on either level of the indicators, suggesting that deterrence effects depend upon a combination of both law in the books and competition policy practice.

The estimates suggest a need to balance both dimension of deterrence, namely, strictness and effectiveness to expand the effects of competition policy on competition.

This is the first paper that explores the effect of competition policy on non-price or non-margin competition dimension. It is the first to study the effect on a sample of digital platforms. It contributes to the literature of deterrence effects of competition policy.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) competitions are a beneficial approach to enhance BIM education, offering students practical experience in BIM application, including mastering workflows and technical tools. However, research exploring the individual perceptions influencing participation intentions and behaviors in BIM competitions is limited. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors affecting university students' behavioral intention and behavior in BIM competitions, providing theoretical support for BIM competitions and educational reform.

This study employs the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework to analyze the factors influencing BIM competition participation among 970 Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) university students.

The results of the study show that social influence, attitude, and self-efficacy play critical roles in shaping students' intentions to participate in BIM competitions. Furthermore, self-efficacy, facilitating conditions, and behavioral intention significantly influence students' actual engagement in such competitions. Surprisingly, effort expectancy negatively influences intentions, as less challenging tasks can lead students to perceive their participation as less impactful on their skills and learning, reducing their behavioral intention to participate.

This research provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of BIM competitions in enhancing BIM education for AEC students. Extending the UTAUT model to include self-efficacy and attitude, provides a novel perspective for understanding students' intentions and behaviors regarding BIM competitions. The study’s theoretical support proposes incorporating BIM competitions to augment BIM teaching methods and offers suggestions for advancing the efficacy of students' involvement in BIM competitions within higher education, thus contributing to educational reform in the AEC sector.

This study aims to analyze the development of digital market characteristics particularly focusing on how the strategic choices of platforms are not fully reflected in pricing. In addition, the implications for the development of theories of harm are investigated to explore the necessity of a relevant market definition in assessing infringement and evaluating the adequacy of Indonesian competition law.

This study is a legal analysis that uses statutory approaches, cases, comparative law and the development of theories of harm in digital mergers. The case approach is conducted by analyzing three cases decided by the Indonesia Business Competition Supervisory Commission. This approach provides insight into the response of Komisi Pengawas Persaingan Usaha concerning the merger and acquisition cases in the digital era as well as the provision of different analyses in conventional markets. However, competition can be potentially damaged in digital markets and a comparative law approach is taken by analyzing digital merger cases decided by authorities in other countries.

Results reveal that the digital market has created a “relevant market” that is challenging and blurred due to multi-sided network effects and consumer data usage characteristics. Platform-based enterprises’ prices fluctuate due to the digital market’s network effect and consumer data statistics. Smartphone prices depend on the number of apps and consumer data. Neoclassical theory focusing on product markets and location applied in Indonesia must be revised to establish a relevant digital economy market. To evaluate digital mergers, new harm theories are needed. The merger should also protect consumer data. Law Number 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection and Government Regulation on the Implementation of Electronic Systems and Transactions protects online consumers, a basic step in due diligence for digital mergers. The Indonesian Government should promptly strengthen the notion of “relevant markets” in the digital economy, which could lead to fair business competition violations like big data control. Notify partners or digital merger participants of the accessibility of sensitive data like transaction history and user location.

The development of digital market characteristics has implications for developing theories of harm in digital markets. Indonesian competition law needs to develop such theories of harm to analyze the potential for anticompetitive digital mergers in the digital economy era.

The study aims to analyze factors impacting firms’ success and persistence in a digital platform competition using the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) framework. The study also includes real-life cases that are beneficial to academicians and practitioners to understand and develop strategies for success and persistence during uncertainty.

A literature review to identify the factors that impact success and persistence in a digital platform competition was conducted following Webster and Watson (2002). Findings were integrated into a SCP framework to examine and understand the identified factors’ relational impact.

While analyzing factors under the SCP framework, all factors were divided into three categories: those impacting positively, those impacting negatively and those with ambiguous impact on the success and persistence in digital platform competition. Digital platform firms can exploit the positively impacting factors to increase market share by being distinctive from other digital platform firms and becoming dominant by withstanding competition. On the other hand, negatively impacting factors increase barriers to entry, intensify competition and reduce the distinctiveness of digital platform firms. Lastly, a few factors may have either a positive or a negative impact depending upon the particular characteristics of the firm/industry.

The study opens the scope for future research on empirically testing the developed conceptual framework and relationships by developing propositions to posit the possible impact of these factors on digital platforms’ success and persistence.

The study contributed to the existing literature by using SCP framework to analyze the factors affecting firm’s success and persistence in a digital platform competition. Also, the study has discussed the relational impact of factors rather than their impact in isolation.

This chapter presents the findings of an extracurricular online beta test of a competition between students of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the International University of Malaya-Wales. The competition is intended to promote the concept of harmonious entrepreneurship and the creation of student-led harmonious enterprises that address the global sustainability challenge and deliver a triple bottom line in which profit, people, and planet are in harmony. It reveals that extracurricular learning can attract students from disciplines other than business and can educate the participants, both staff and students, not just about harmonious entrepreneurship but also how to identify and launch an innovative harmonious enterprise that addresses a sustainability challenge. The test identifies how the competition may be improved prior to its global launch and makes recommendations for students, educators, mentors, providers, and universities as to how it might best be implemented. Once revised and launched the competition will be further tested to better understand how extracurricular learning can help advance the delivery of both entrepreneurship and sustainability education in universities and colleges around the globe.

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) calls for far-reaching changes to the way economic activity will occur in EU digital markets. Before its remedies are imposed, it is critical to assess their impacts on individual markets, the digital sector, and the overall European economy. The European Commission (EC) released an Impact Assessment in support of the DMA that purports to evaluate it using cost/benefit analysis.

An economic evaluation of the DMA should consider its full impacts on dynamic competition. The Impact Assessment neither assesses the DMA's impact on dynamic competition in the digital economy nor evaluates the impacts of specific DMA prohibitions and obligations. Instead, it considers benefits in general and largely ignores costs. We study its benefit assessments and find they are based on highly inappropriate methodologies and assumptions. A cost/benefit study using inappropriate methodologies and largely ignoring costs cannot provide a sound policy assessment.

Instead of promoting dynamic competition between platforms, the DMA will likely reinforce existing market structures, ossify market boundaries, and stunt European innovation. The DMA is likely to chill R&D by encouraging free riding on the investments of others, which discourages making those investments. Avoiding harm to innovation is critical because innovation delivers large, positive spillover benefits, driving increases in productivity, employment, wages, and prosperity.

The DMA prioritizes static over dynamic competition, with the potential to harm the European economy. Given this, the Impact Assessment does not demonstrate that the DMA will be beneficial overall, and its implementation must be carefully tailored to alleviate or lessen its potential to harm Europe’s economic performance.

This paper aims to investigate whether Kazakh small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that claim to compete with the informal sector are more likely to invest in innovation than their competitors who do not perceive such pressure.

Logistic regression and classification trees are performed on the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (2018–2020) to examine whether the degree of informal competition correlates with a firm's propensity to innovate.

The findings show that informal sector competition is a critical factor that shapes the organizational behaviour of Kazakh SMEs. There is a stimulating positive effect of informal competition on both product and process innovation, depending on its perceived intensity.

This study challenges conventional thinking that still views informal sector competition as a barrier to innovation and entrepreneurship by assessing whether innovation is compatible with informal entrepreneurial practice.

The study seeks to evaluate the effect of capital adequacy and competition on the liquidity creation of Kenyan commercial banks.

Unbalanced panel data from 36 Kenyan commercial banks with licenses from 2001 to 2020 is used in the study. The generalized method of moments (GMM), a two-step system, is employed in the investigation. To increase the robustness and prevent erroneous findings, serial correlation tests and instrumental validity analyses are used. The methodology developed by Berger and Bouwman (2009) is used to estimate the commercial banks' levels of liquidity creation.

The study supports the financial fragility-crowding out hypothesis by finding a significant negative effect of capital adequacy on the liquidity creation of commercial banks. The research also identifies a significant inverse relationship between competition and liquidity creation, depicting competition's value-destroying effect.

A trade-off exists between capital adequacy and liquidity creation, which must be carefully evaluated as changes in capital requirements are considered. The value-destroying effect of competition on liquidity creation presents a case for policy geared toward consolidating banks' operations through possible mergers and acquisitions.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to empirically offer evidence concurrently on the effect of competition and capital adequacy on the liquidity creation of commercial banks in a developing economy such as Kenya. Additionally, the authors employ a novel measure of competition at the firm level.

In this study, the author examines the effect of managers’ perception of product market competition on accruals and real earnings management.

The author develops a new text-based measure of the emphasis managers place on product market competition by conducting a textual analysis of firms’ 10-K filings. Using this measure, the author conducts a battery of econometric analyses and robustness checks to investigate the impact of this measure of product market competition on measures of accruals and real earnings management.

This study finds robust evidence that when management perceives more competitive threats, they are more likely to engage in accruals-based earnings manipulation but are less likely to engage in real earnings management activity. The author argues that these findings are due to managers’ career concerns enticing them to manage earnings via accrual when competition is high, but that greater product market competition discourages real earning management activity as it can diminish firms’ competitiveness.

The findings of this paper have important policy and practical implications since it signals that managers’ perceptions of product market competition is able to affect accounting choices, information environments and economic outcomes in firms.

This study develops a new text-based measure of managers’ perception of product market competition with the aid of GPT-4. The author then using this measure provides firm-level evidence on how this relates to earnings management.