| The rule equilibrium model of this thesis examines highly oligopolistic market structures as well as international interaction of regulatory processes (on the example of market structure regulation). It does so in two steps. Firstly, it exhibits a model in which the lobbying of a regulatory process by consumers and firms endogenously determines the "optimum" number of firms in an industry (this model contains the purely economic model of market structure as a special case), Secondly, it embeds this model in an international setting where regulatory processes of a number of countries interdependently (through trade and multilateral lobbying by constituents) determine market structure in all the markets.;It is in this second step that the roots of international impacts are traced. It is shown that as power balance among consumers and producers within a regulatory process determines market structure in one country and as that market structure causes a particular market equilibrium in international markets (through trade, by influencing quantities of trade and the prices at which it occurs, cross-border lobbying, etc.), and as furthermore this equilibrium in international markets is consistent with the market structure in other countries and thus with the power balance among consumers, firms and the regulatory process in them, then any change in the power balance in any country, resulting in the change in its market structure, will have an impact on the market structure and power balance of its trading partners.;The thesis concludes with examining several cases of regulatory influence on market structure in broadcasting, telephone, and electric power generation industries. It also examines the auto industry in four countries: the United States, Japan, Canada, and Germany. It analyzes the power balance among the consumers and the producers in all of these countries that is consistent with the current structure of the auto industry.;Contributions of this thesis lie in the systematic analysis of the political power balance argument as the determinant of market structure, a model that accounts easily for highly concentrated oligopolistic market structures, and a methodology for analyzing the international interaction of regulatory policies. |
