Effects on competition in the console and cloud gaming markets Many people in the games industry expected the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to approve Microsoft’s proposed takeover of the games business, Activision Blizzard. However, in its final report published on 26 April, the CMA stated that the takeover would result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in the supply of cloud gaming services in the UK. It rejected a behavioural remedy proposed by Microsoft and concluded that the merger should be prohibited. When analysing the potential impact of this merger, the CMA fo ..read more

March 2023 saw the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a regional US bank based in California that focused on financial services for the technology sector. It also saw the forced purchase of global-banking giant, Credit Suisse, by rival Swiss bank, UBS. These events fuelled concerns over the banking sector’s financial well-being, with fears for other financial institutions and the wider economy. Yet it is not the only sector where concerns abound over financial well-being. The cost-of-living crisis, the hike in interest rates and the economic slowdown continue to have an adverse impact on th ..read more

Why did a competition authority change its mind on one aspect of this merger? In January 2022, Microsoft announced its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard is one of the largest games publishers in the world and famous for titles such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Sales revenue from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II was over $10 billion within ten days of its release in 2022. Given Microsoft’s ownership of the Xbox, one of the three devices that dominate the market for gaming consoles, the deal was always likely to raise competition concerns. Potent ..read more

The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its most comprehensive report so far. It finds that ‘human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming’. This has led to widespread and rapid changes in climate and biodiversity and to more extreme weather patterns, such as droughts, floods and hurricanes. What is more, the distribution of these effects is uneven, with communities who have contributed the least to current climate change being disproportionately affected. At the 2015 COP21 climate change ..read more

The mandates of central banks around the world are typically focused on controlling inflation. In many cases, this is accompanied by operational independence from government, but with the government setting an inflation target. The central bank then chooses the appropriate monetary policy to achieve the inflation target. This is argued to provide the conditions that can deliver lower and less variable inflation rates – at least over the longer term. However, some economists argue that this has the potential to create the conditions for greater economic volatility and financial instability. The ..read more

In two previous posts, one at the end of 2019 and one in July 2021, we looked at moves around the world to introduce a four-day working week, with no increase in hours on the days worked and no reduction in weekly pay. Firms would gain if increased worker energy and motivation resulted in a gain in output. They would also gain if fewer hours resulted in lower costs. Workers would be likely to gain from less stress and burnout and a better work–life balance. What is more, firms’ and workers’ carbon footprint could be reduced as less time was spent at work and in commuting. If the same output co ..read more

Prices of used fully electric cars (EVs) are falling in the UK, even though prices of used internal combustion engine (ICE) cars are rising. According to Auto Trader (see the first two articles below), in February 2023 the average price of used petrol cars rose by 3.3% compared with January and the price of used diesel cars rose by 1.4%. But the price of used EVs fell by 9.1%. This follows a fall of 2.1% in January. But why are used EV prices falling? After all, the last few years has seen a drive to replace ICEs with EVs and hybrids, with many consumers preferring electric cars to petrol and ..read more

Tickets for Beyonce’s 2023 UK Renaissance tour went on general sale via Ticketmaster’s website at 10am on Tuesday 7 February. Throughout the day, social media were full of messages from fans complaining about technical issues, long online queues and rising prices. This is not the first time this has happened. Similar complaints were made in 2022 when tickets went on sale for tours by Bruce Springsteen, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. With the general sale of tickets for Beyonce’s tour, many fans complained they were waiting in online queues of over 500 000 people. Others reported their frustrat ..read more

Imagine a situation where you are thinking of buying a good and so you go to an e-commerce marketplace such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy or Onbuy. How confident are you about the quality of the different brands/makes that are listed for sale on these digital platforms? How do you choose which product to buy? Is the decision strongly influenced by customer reviews and rating? When a customer is choosing what to buy it raises an interesting question: to what extent can the true quality of the different goods/services be observed at the time of purchase? Although perfect observability is highly unlikely ..read more

Last year was far from the picture of economic stability that all governments would hope for. Instead, the overarching theme of 2022 was uncertainty, which overshadowed many economic predictions throughout the year. The Collins English Dictionary announced that their word of the year for 2022 is ‘permacrisis’, which is defined as ‘an extended period of instability and insecurity’. For the UK, 2022 was an eventful year, seeing two changes in prime minister, economic stagnation, financial turmoil, rampant inflation and a cost of living crisis. However, the UK was not alone in its economic strugg ..read more