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International pro-competition regulation of digital platforms: healthy experimentation or dangerous fragmentation?

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  • Amelia Fletcher

Abstract

The increasing dominance of a small number of ‘big tech’ companies, across a range of critical online markets, has led to growing calls for regulation to promote more competition, and to ensure that market power is not exploited unfairly. New regulatory regimes to this end are now under development in a variety of jurisdictions. While the new German and EU regulatory regimes are the most advanced, there are detailed proposals under discussion in the UK, US, and China, while in South Korea new regulations have been introduced in relation to the specific area of app stores. This article discusses several questions arising in this context. What problem is pro-competition digital platform regulation trying to solve? Why regulation and not competition law? What are the design challenges involved in developing such regulation? What are the risks arising from diverging regulatory approaches to these global issues and how much these risks be mitigated? And what role can trade policy play?

Suggested Citation

  • Amelia Fletcher, 2023. "International pro-competition regulation of digital platforms: healthy experimentation or dangerous fragmentation?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 39(1), pages 12-33.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:39:y:2023:i:1:p:12-33.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/grac047
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Martin Hellwig, 2008. "Competition Policy and Sector-Specific Regulation for Network Industries," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_29, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Jens-Uwe Franck & Martin Peitz, 2021. "Digital Platforms and the New 19a Tool in the German Competition Act," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2021_297, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
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    Cited by:

    1. Emily Jones, 2023. "Digital disruption: artificial intelligence and international trade policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 39(1), pages 70-84.
    2. Emily Jones & Christopher Adam, 2023. "New frontiers of trade and trade policy: digitalization and climate change," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 39(1), pages 1-11.

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