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This article surveys the recent experience of resolving access and interconnection issues in four quite different economies in East Asia: Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia. It suggests that there are some important questions that decide how interconnect issues are resolved in practice: clarity of the rules; national priorities; regulator activism; emphasis on negotiation by the parties and the overall pricing model. The overall finding is that the degree of regulatory intervention required to make interconnect regimes work has largely been underestimated.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the remaining aspects of telecommunications service that might require continued economic and technical regulation even after competition is present to the maximum extent feasible. The paper further explores the regulatory institutions and practices that will best accomplish this required regulation.

The paper evaluates the traditional choices between a sector‐specific regulator and a competition authority, as well as ex post and ex ante regulation. In addition, the paper evaluates less traditional methods of regulation including laws of general application, such as consumer protection laws, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, and self‐regulation. The characteristics of each of these means of regulation are identified, and, following a set of principles, the regulatory institutions and practices are matched to the areas of telecommunications requiring regulation.

The paper identifies five areas of telecommunications that will likely require continuing regulation and matches a regulatory institution or practice to each of the five areas of regulation. These five areas are retail regulation of local services in rural and remote areas with insufficient competition for forbearance, interconnection of competing networks and essential facilities, duty to serve (carrier of last resort and obligation to serve), subsidies for high‐cost or low‐income customers, and social regulation such as emergency service and message relay obligations.

Previous studies have not focused on the need for continuing regulation after competition develops to the maximum extent feasible. Also, studies typically consider the limited framework of a sector‐specific regulator or a competition authority and do not consider the other regulatory options or institutions available.

This paper aims to analyze how the administrative structure of pension regulators affects regulatory capture or regulatory influence. It uses a historical institutionalist methodology to analyze regulatory capture.

The authors argue that the less complex allocation of regulatory authority in Ireland makes it more susceptible to regulatory capture or regulatory influence by the regulated industry than in the USA. Also, it is argued that stand-alone agencies are more susceptible to regulatory capture than are agencies that are embedded within larger departments of government. The authors present a five-step process in regulatory capture, with the later steps being used by the regulated industry if the earlier ones have failed.

The authors find that if the regulated industry has difficulty achieving regulatory capture through influencing the executive branch of government, it can also attempt to influence the legislative and judicial branches, as evidenced by a regulatory episode the USA has recently completed. Ireland has also recently completed reforms that may make regulatory capture more difficult. With a complex regulatory structure including overlapping authority as in the USA, when one agency has been strongly influenced by the regulated industry, another agency may take action to protect the public.

The paper presents international evidence as to the effect of the administrative structure of regulators on regulatory outcomes. It tests a hypothesis that the more complex, overlapping allocation of regulatory authority in the USA makes it less susceptible to regulatory capture.

This paper aims to explain and demonstrate how business model frameworks can be used to understand market developments and to assess the role of policy in (multi‐sided) ICT markets.

The research approach in the paper builds on integrated business model frameworks, which cover (much) more than the financial decisions of one single firm. A case study approach is implemented and tested in two studies on digital content platforms.

Relevant policy instruments are identified and explored. To some extent, the findings are complementary or contradictory to the findings of existing studies on digital content platforms. The paper includes policy recommendations related to mobile and fixed content platforms.

Limitations of the study are due to the explorative and qualitative approach, and are to be complemented by other approaches. Policy makers and researchers can use the approach to analyse digital content platform developments and the impact of policy. Stakeholders in innovation processes can use the approach to address business models as well as policy issues for emerging platforms and services.

The use of business model analysis in the context of policy analysis is a relatively new approach that is inspired by research findings on information communication technology (ICT) platforms and multi‐sided networks, progress in business model studies, challenges in the policy mix for ICT, and the importance of case study methods for impact assessment.

With the surge in public procurement, especially in developing countries, ensuring fair competition in procurement has assumed paramount importance. Academic endeavors in the domain of competition issues have often lacked the views of field-level functionaries. This study aims to involve a large number of expert practitioners in India to identify the significant contemporary competition risks in public procurement from the procurer and supplier sides and develop a model depicting the hierarchy of competition-restrictive actions (CRAs) in procurement based on their mutual interactions.

The significant CRAs along the procurement cycle are identified through literature survey, interactive workshops and expert interviews. A questionnaire survey covering 143 respondents from 12 public organizations is used to evaluate their impact. Considering the complex causal interactions involved, interpretive structural modeling followed by MICMAC (Iimpact matrix cross-reference multiplication applied to a classification analysis is used to develop a hierarchical model of competition risks in procurement.

Tailor-made contracts, splitting of a project below competition thresholds, restrictive selection criteria and awarding the contract on nomination emerge as CRAs with the highest driving power. Horizontal collusion among vendors strongly depends on practices followed in the procuring organization.

The survey data and the experts’ opinions emanate from practitioners in India, which is a limitation. However, with necessary contextual calibrations, the study is of high functional utility to policymakers and practitioners.

The research facilitates a comprehensive understanding to procurement managers/policymakers of the CRAs along the procurement cycle and their interdependencies. It offers valuable insights for improving competition, which is foundational for optimal procurement outcomes.

The study enriches the public procurement domain knowledge by identifying and assessing the significant contemporary CRAs, examining their mutual interactions and developing an interpretive structural model. Although contributing to the body of knowledge, the study is unique in being grounded in field realities.

Academic research has intensively analyzed the relationship between market concentration or market power and banking stability but provides ambiguous results, which are summarized under the concentration-stability/fragility view. We provide empirical evidence that the mixed results are due to the difficulty of identifying reliable variables to measure concentration and market power.

Using data from 3,943 banks operating in the European Union (EU)-15 between 2013 and 2020, we employ linear regression models on panel data. Banking market concentration is measured by the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), and market power is estimated by the product-specific Lerner Indices for the loan and deposit market, respectively.

Our analysis reveals a significantly stability-decreasing impact of market concentration (HHI) and a significantly stability-increasing effect of market power (Lerner Indices). In addition, we provide evidence for a weak (or even absent) empirical relationship between the (non)structural measures, challenging the validity of the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) paradigm. Our baseline findings remain robust, especially when controlling for a likely reverse causality.

Our results suggest that the HHI may reflect other factors beyond market power that influence banking stability. Thus, banking supervisors and competition authorities should investigate market concentration and market power simultaneously while considering their joint impact on banking stability.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research that examined the potential affects of academic library consortia activity on the scholarly publishing cycle.

Semi‐structured interviews of 30 university librarians from across Canada and representatives from six federal government agencies involved in university funding, copyright and competition policy, were used to examine consortia activity in the broad context of the scholarly publishing cycle from the competing perspectives of the market economy and the public good. The principles of competition and copyright were used to define the theoretical premise of the research.

University librarians primarily see consortia activity as supporting academic libraries' public good role of providing access to information as equitably and as barrier‐free as possible. They saw consortia as more than just buying clubs, but also as a means for libraries to share resources and expertise. Federal government agency representatives saw consortia activity firmly anchored in the market economy, levelling the playing field between libraries and publishers, and providing libraries opportunities to leverage their budgets.

This research was unique to the Canadian situation of federal funding of universities and only a sampling of university librarians was feasible.

The results show a need to educate librarians and government funding bodies and policy makers as to the goals and outcomes of consortia activity.

At the time of the defence of the thesis this work had not been done before.

There has been widespread recent public debate about problems of corporate governance, accountability and audit regulation in the UK. In the arena of UK audit regulation, the Auditing Practices Board’s publications, The Audit Agenda and The Audit Research Agenda, contain a discussion of audit regulation and call for research into the problem. This article reviews the “macro”, “micro” and “international” models for the regulation of audit that have already been proposed in the literature, and considers the appropriateness of the models to improve the regulation of company audit in the UK. The main conclusion is that while each of the models proposed have superficial attractions, there is a danger of considering them out of context. More research is needed into the practicalities, costs and benefits of the various models that have been suggested. Without such research there is a risk that any reform may not improve, or indeed may reduce, the effectiveness of the existing regulatory framework.

To provide a critical perspective on the robustness of strategic account management (sometimes called key account management) strategies as an approach to managing relationships with large and very large customers.

The paper is based on exploratory interviews and management workshop discussions and the observation of the operation of strategic account management approaches in practice, and is illustrated with cases drawn from secondary sources.

Suggests that SAM may amount to investment in strategic weakness that enhances dependencies and limits the scope for superior supplier performance; a customer portfolio analysis of all accounts identifies where the best prospects for long‐term profit exist; many strategic account relationships are based on exaggerated estimates of customer relationship requirements and customer loyalty. We conclude that strategy analysts should be concerned with developing new business models that avoid the trap of dependence on powerful, major customers, rather than pursuing business strategies like SAM that reinforce dependencies.

There are a number of research opportunities in examining the long‐term impact of formalizing strategic account management systems in supplier organizations.

We aim to provide managers and analysts with a different perspective on strategic account management strategy that considers the potential weaknesses and vulnerabilities created through the strategy, to be compared to the attractions of this strategy.

Our goal is to add to understanding of strategic relationships between buyers and sellers. We do not believe that the downside to strategic account management strategy has received adequate recognition in existing treatments of the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of the Salary Cost Management Protocol, a form of financial regulation introduced by the English Football League in 2004 to improve the financial sustainability of professional football (i.e. soccer) clubs.

The analytical approach is to assess the effect of the regulation from evidence of change in measures of the financial performance of clubs drawing on three criteria: profitability, liquidity and solvency. A unique database was created from the published financial statements and notes to the accounts of the clubs in the Tier 4 league (known since 2004 as League Two) from 1994 to 2014 to encapsulate the 10-year period before and after the regulation was introduced. To show trends in the data within the study period, the data are reported in graphical form. The statistical significance of change in both the slope and intercepts for trends between breaks of interest in the data is estimated by linear regression.

The results show that financial regulation failed to significantly improve the profitability or the solvency of football clubs in League Two. Whilst the liquidity of the clubs improved in response to the introduction of the financial regulation, the results show this was only in the year in which the financial regulation was introduced.

The results extend theoretical debate on financial regulation in sports leagues by moving beyond the assumption that financial regulation is a “technical exercise” to provide an alternative way of thinking about financial regulation as a “legitimising exercise”.

This is the first study to assess the impact of financial regulation for football league clubs over a longitudinal period. It is also extends previous research in which only single aspects of the financial sustainability of football clubs, such as insolvency, have been considered.