Rethinking The Approach Of The Review Of The Concentration Of Undertakings In The Digital Economy

The digital economy market is characterized by self-reinforcing effects,spillover effects,and lock-in effects,which give platform enterprises with data as their core element market control power different from that of competitors in traditional markets.The analysis of the concentration of the undertakings should respond to the new challenges brought by the digital market.However,the previous price-centered antitrust analysis method,on the one hand,cannot cope with the new characteristics of digital market such as "zero price" and "multilateral market" due to the inherent limitation of price analysis tools,and on the other hand,the price-centered consequentialism narrows the vision of antitrust law.From the perspective of legislative purpose,the essence of antitrust law is to maintain freedom of competition,and consumer price is only one of the results of competition.The analysis of the concentration of undertakings should return to the core of maintaining the competitive process and respond to the challenges brought by the digital economy.Regarding the specific optimization of the analysis path,a process analysis preceding the outcome analysis should be constructed,the focus on relevant market barriers and vertical/cross-industry concentration should be enhanced,and the deficiencies in price-oriented outcome analysis should be corrected.This paper consists of four main chapters.Chapter 1 illustrates the existence of self-reinforcing effects,network effects,and non-price competitive harm in the digital economy market,and analyzes the review criteria,choice of economic tools,and price analysis in China’s past concentration of the undertakings review.Chapter 2 analyzes the problems with the price-centric analysis approach under the digital market,where price analysis tools are limited by the existence of digital markets with insignificant short-term price increases,zero-price markets,multilateral markets,and other characteristics that are difficult to implement.The price-centered consequentialism ignores non-price competitive harm such as personal information,innovation,and consumer choice.Chapter 3 points out that the goals and objectives of antitrust law are centered on the preservation of freedom of competition,and that the pursuit of efficiency and other goals are under the umbrella of the pursuit of the competitive process.Preserving the competitive process accommodates more resilient consumer interests and has analytical advantages given the nature of digital markets.The preservation of competition can not only respond to the challenges of the digital economy,but also protect the interests of consumers in a broader sense and restore the original face of antitrust law.Chapter 4 proposes an optimal path for the analysis of operator concentration in terms of concrete operation.The construction of the analysis path should be preceded by the competition process and supplemented by the analysis of the results.The analysis of the competitive structure should focus on the market barriers in the relevant market and the structural relationship between the participating concentrated enterprises in the market;the analysis of the results should improve the rationality of the economic tools and adopt qualitative or quantitative analysis methods to cover the non-price competitive damage according to the case situation.