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31. International Cooperation and the Logic of Networks: Europe and the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)

Author:
David Bach
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Contrary to the United States, the European Union (EU) has established a single technical standard for second generation wireless telecommunications. The successful creation of the pan-European digital standard GSM is of utmost industrial significance. It has provided Europe's equipment manufacturing industry with a market large enough to exploit economies of scale and has thus enabled European manufacturers to become world leaders in the mobile communications industry. Given the centrality and crucial importance of wireless technology for the emerging information society and digital economy, the story of the establishment of GSM is of interest to anybody studying the growth and trajectory of digital technology and its commercial applications. After all, the nature of digital economies implies that control over network evolution translates into control over the architecture of the digital marketplace, as François Bar has argued. Hence, control of and influence over network evolution has global economic ramifications. In addition, however, the political process that enabled GSM featured pivotal supranational leadership in the form of European Commission initiatives in a domain that has traditionally been dominated by national players. Grasping standard setting in the case of GSM thus also contributes to an understanding of the changing governance patterns of the European economy and consequently is of interest to anybody concerned with issues of European integration as a whole.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

32. The Political Economy of Open Source Software

Author:
Steven Weber
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Coca-Cola sells bottles of soda to consumers. Consumers drink the soda (or use it in any other way they like). Some consumers, out of morbid curiosity, may read the list of ingredients on the bottle. But that list of ingredients is generic. Coca-Cola has a proprietary 'formula' that it does not and will not release. The formula is the knowledge that makes it possible for Coke to combine sugar, water, and a few other readily available ingredients in particular proportions and produce something of great value. The bubbly stuff in your glass cannot be reverse-engineered into its constituent parts. You can buy it and you can drink it, but you can't understand it in a way that would empower you to reproduce it or improve upon it and distribute your improved cola drink to the rest of the world.
Topic:
International Law, Political Economy, and Science and Technology

33. Tools for Thought: What Is New and Important About the "E-conomy"?

Author:
John Zysman, Stephen S. Cohen, and J. Bradford DeLong
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
There are eras when advancing technology and changing business organizations transform economies and societies. Such episodes do not just amplify productivity in one leading sector. Instead, they give all economic sectors powerful new "tools." Today we are living through such a transformation in our economic landscape, a transformation that warrants a new name: the "E-conomy." Information technologies, data communication and data processing technologies, are tools to manipulate, organize, transmit, and store information in digital form. They are tools for thought that amplify brainpower in the way the technologies of the Industrial Revolution amplified muscle power.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology

34. Building China's Information Technology Industry

Author:
Stephen S. Cohen and Michael Borrus
Publication Date:
11-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
At the October 29, 1997, summit meeting between President Jiang Zemin of the People's Republic of China ("China") and President Bill Clinton of the United States, President Jiang announced his government's commitment to join the Information Technology Agreement ("ITA") and thereby eliminate China's tariffs on semiconductors, computers and other information technology products. President Jiang also agreed that, in the context of the negotiations concerning China's accession to the World Trade Organization ("WTO"), China would make further substantial tariff reductions.
Topic:
Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

35. The Era of Microsoft? Externalities, and the Seattle Factor in the US Software Industry

Author:
Edmund A. Egan
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
Microsoft Corporation, the largest company in the US software industry, has been under anti-trust scrutiny from the Department of Justice for most of the 1990s. In 1995, its planned acquisition of Intuit, Inc. prompted a Silicon Valley law firm, on behalf of unnamed complainants, to submit a White Paper to the DOJ, on the subject of Microsoft's long-term strategy. The White Paper, relying on the theoretical concepts of network externalities and lock-in effects, argues that Microsoft will use Intuit's products to attain monopolistic positions in network operating systems, on-line services, and electronic commerce, and will eventually be in a position to affect the content transmitted over electronic networks.
Topic:
Industrial Policy and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States