Barriers to entry alert: do late entrants have a chance
22 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, liberalism, technological progress Tags: Austrian economics, barriers to entry, creative destruction, Israel Kirzner, market process
September 21, 1999 – Google came out of beta; the 17th search engine to officially enter the market.
Kirzner defines a competitive market as a market where no potential participant faces non-market obstacles to entry:
Following a long tradition in economics going back at least to Adam Smith, Austrians define a competitive market not as a situation where no participant or potential participant has the power to make any difference, but as a market where no potential participant faces nonmarket obstacles to entry.
(The adjective “nonmarket” refers, primarily, to government obstacles to entry; it is used to differentiate such obstacles from, for example, high production costs that might discourage entry. These latter do not constitute noncompetitive elements in a market; to be able to enter means to be able to enter a market if one judges such entry to be economically promising-it does not mean to be able to enter without having to bear the relevant costs of production.) That is, a situation is competitive if no incumbent participant possesses privileges that protect him against the possible entry of new competitors.
The achievements that free markets are able to attain depend, in the Austrian view, on freedom of entry, that is, on the absence of privilege.
Timeless Tips for ‘Simple Sabotage’ — Central Intelligence Agency
21 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, organisational economics, personnel economics, war and peace Tags: sabotage
Six of the world’s seven billion people have mobile phones – but only 4.5 billion have a toilet, according to a U.N. report
06 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
Henry Hazlitt on wise bureaucrats and farsighted politicians
21 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, entrepreneurship, liberalism, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: fatal conceit, Henry Hazlitt, pretence to knowledge
“Trapped” in Rental Contracts | Organizations and Markets
17 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Armen Alchian, comparative institutional analysis, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Ronald Coase, survivor principle, theory of the firm Tags: long-term contracts, mutual dependency, relationship dependent assets, transaction costs, vertical integration
- Mercedes and BMW drivers trapped in lease contracts, rather than buying their cars with cash or credit
- Individuals trapped in wage and salary contracts, rather than raising the capital, arranging the inputs, and bearing the uncertainties to be sole proprietors
- Companies trapped in outsourcing agreements, rather than owning all upstream and downstream production processes directly, as vertically integrated firms
- Vacationers trapped in resort hotels, rather than owning their own vacation condos or timeshares
- Readers trapped by downloading and reading books on their Kindles, essentially “renting” them from Amazon, rather than buying physical books
- Movie fans trapped in DVD rental agreements with Netflix, rather than owning massive DVD libraries
via “Trapped” in Rental Contracts | Organizations and Markets.
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