So apparently eBay has dropped its PayPal moves in Australia. It never made sense and clearly when challenged by the regulator, they have backed off. So who pays when the regulator effectively enforces common sense?
So apparently eBay has dropped its PayPal moves in Australia. It never made sense and clearly when challenged by the regulator, they have backed off. So who pays when the regulator effectively enforces common sense?
There was been lots of discussion about whether a Googlopoly is a good or bad thing. Sure they may have a virtual monopoly on search but they are somewhat of a benevolent one so what is the problem. But even with benevolence, there can be a lack of diversity. So when a friend told me that they were going to be doing lots of work for Microsoft to ensure that there were a variety of search options, I decided to think just a little about it. Read more »
The ACCC has signaled today that it is likely to challenge eBay Australia’s move to require PayPal to be the exclusive payments mechanism for online transactions (well, other than cash).
“Given eBay’s position as Australia’s leading online marketplace, the notified conduct will substantially reduce competition to supply online payment services to users of online marketplaces more generally.
Read more »
The ACCC has updated their econometrics on FuelWatch and it reinforces the positive effects of that policy found in WA. The new updates do two things. First, they respond to claims that price falls in WA were the result of the entry of Coles rather than FuelWatch. The ACCC uses a test for endogenous structural breaks to look for significant events. They find that both Coles’ entry and FuelWatch were such events but that FuelWatch’s effect was almost three times as large. Read more »
In The Sunday Age today, an article about Informed Sources (a company I have discussed before). Read more »
In today’s Age, econometrician, Don Harding, discusses the use of econometric evidence in policy-making. His case is FuelWatch. Read more »
Following on from my post yesterday based solely on the ACCC media release, I have now had a chance to read the ACCC’s determination. The ACCC is fairly agnostic on markets and notes that it disagrees with a key assumption of eBay’s that I will explain shortly. Ironically, it is the ACCC who is assessing that consumers have greater sovereignty in this domain. Read more »
In today’s AFR, my colleague Ian Harper argues that the four pillars policy, restricting mergers amongst the four major Australian banks, should be dropped. He argues that the ACCC will check the competition issues and that at the moment, the inability to merge is crimping our banking sector’s ability to grow. Read more »
In The Sunday Age today, an article about Informed Sources (a company I have discussed before). Read more »
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