eScholarship Repository eScholarship Repository California Digital Library
eScholarship > IBER > CPC > Paper CPC01-019

CPC Papers

CPC Website

Policies

Search CPC

Submit a Paper

Notify me of new papers
institute_logo

Institute of Business and Economic Research
Competition Policy Center
University of California, Berkeley
CPC Papers  •  CPC Website  •  Policies  •  Search  •  Submit a Paper

An Economist's Guide to U.S. v Microsoft
Richard Gilbert, University of California at Berkeley
Michael Katz, Haas School of Business, Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley

Download the Paper (139 K, PDF file) - May 2, 2001 Tell a colleague about it.
Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing.

ABSTRACT:
We analyze the central economic issues raised by U.S. v Microsoft. Network effects and economies of scale in applications programs created a barrier to entry for new operating system competitors, which the combination of Netscape Navigator and the Java programming language potentially could have lowered. Microsoft took actions to eliminate this threat to its operating system monopoly, and some of Microsoft's conduct very likely harmed consumers. While we recognize the risks of the government's proposed structural remedy of splitting Microsoft in two, we are pessimistic that a limited conduct remedy would be effective in this case.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Richard Gilbert and Michael Katz, "An Economist's Guide to U.S. v Microsoft" (May 2, 2001). Competition Policy Center. Paper CPC01-019.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/iber/cpc/CPC01-019

 
bar
Open Archives Initiative eScholarship is a service of the California Digital Library bepress