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Using data from Japanese municipalities, this article analyzes the impact of institutional reform processes on the average winning bid for municipal public procurement. The results are (1) the general competitive bidding method led to a decrease in the average winning bid, and (2) bidding reform itself led to a decrease in the average winning bid. The former is a factor that results from the competition function, and the latter is an authority's commitment factor, which is rooted in an aggressive atmosphere for efficiency through the reformed bidding system; this factor is similar to the "Hawthorne Effect," in which changes in businesses' behavior during the course of a particular term may be related only to the special social situation, and social treatment that they encountered.

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Information and communication technology (ICT) is evolving at an accelerating pace. Competition law and policy aim to secure an active competition process in the market in order to protect customers in their own countries, regardless of the nationality of the actors, including the ICT industry. As the platforms become more oligopolistic, the Japanese government has established a data portability that enables users to transfer from any specific platform, at any time, to open up an environment where new platform-type businesses are created one after another and where active competition is carried out. In this policy discussion, it is necessary to seek methods that include realistic international cooperation that is not subject to regulation or intervention-oriented measures. In addition, discussion based on economic empirical analysis is particularly needed. From the viewpoints of ensuring innovative research and development (R&D) concerning artificial intelligence (AI) and fair competition generally, the way of the Governance of AI Networking should be a nonregulatory and a nonbinding way, taking technical features and responsibility distribution among stakeholders (developers, providers, end users, and third parties) into account.

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Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between the geographic market size of businesses and the competitiveness of being able to bid at low prices. Design/methodology/approach The design of this study is based on a natural experiment approach. Firstly, after controlling for the firm size and other factors, the author sees that firms participating in bidding in a large region are more competitive to bid at lower prices than firms doing business in a smaller region. The author then tests for causality in a natural experiment of the exogenous event. Findings The results show that firms participating in the bidding process in a large area are more competitive to bid at lower prices than firms doing business in a small area. This is tested in a natural experiment, and the result is that they are more competitive because they do business in a larger area. Practical implications The practical implication is that, when aiming for competitiveness, it is most important to consider the nature of the business and to see the essence of the business, for example, that networks are important in the construction industry, and that doing business over a wide area is the way to become competitive. Social implications The social implications are that to make firms more competitive, we must look at the characteristics of the industry and come up with policies that fit the reality, such as encouraging them to do business in a wide area. Originality/value The originality of this study is that this study viewed competitiveness as being able to bid low prices for public procurement and found that doing business in a wide area is competitive. Furthermore, the causal effect of the study was to test the fact that doing business in a wide area does not mean doing business in a wide area because it is competitive, but that doing business in a wide area creates a competitive advantage.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This paper analyzes platforms and rejections in two-sided markets with network externalities, using the specific context of a payment card association. We study the cooperative antitrust determination of the interchange fee by member banks. We use a framework in which banks and merchants may have market power and consumers and merchants decide rationally on whether to buy or accept a payment card developed by Rochet and Tirole (2002). After drawing the welfare implications of a cooperative determination of the interchange fee and antitrust conducts, we describe in detail the factors affecting merchant resistance, compare cooperative and for-profit business models, and make a first cut in the analysis of system competition. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may