Today’s superstar companies owe their privileged position to digital technology’s network effects, whereby a product becomes even more desirable as more people use it.

And although software platforms and online services can be costly to launch, expanding them is relatively inexpensive.

Consequently, firms that are already established can keep growing with far fewer workers than they would have needed in the past.

These factors help to explain why the digital economy has given rise to large firms that have a reduced need for labour. And, once these firms are established and dominate their chosen market, the new economy allows them to pursue anti-competitive measures that prevent actual and potential rivals from challenging their position. And, as the economists David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence F. Katz, Christina Patterson and John Van Reenen show, the US industries with the fastest-growing market concentration have also seen the largest drop in labour’s share of income.

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Monday 22 May

MENAFN

Jordan – restoring digital economy competition

http://menafn.com/1095505479/Jordan--Restoring-digital-economy-competition

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