This book analyses the vertical relationships of firms in an international context. These relationships, Khalid Sekkat argues, have gained further relevance due to the notable increase in vertical specialization of production across borders in the past few years.

This book investigates under which circumstances vertical unbundling can lead to a more efficient market result. The assessment is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining law and economics. Drawing on the assessment, circumstances are subsequently presented under which unbundling might become necessary. Additionally, less severe means of regulatory intervention are suggested in order to protect competition. Given its scope, the book is chiefly intended for scholars and practitioners in the field of economic policy and regulation law; in addition, it will give interested members of the public a unique opportunity to learn about the underlying rationales of regulation law and regulation economics.

From the back cover: The fundamental question addressed by this study is the extent to which service functions formerly performed within industrial firms have been contracted out. If the service sector has grown primarily because manufacturing and other industries have contracted out janitorial, security and other business services, then there in not much economic significance to service sector growth. This also implies that observed declines in manufacturing employment may also represent nothing more than inter-sectoral shifts in the location of employment. This study breaks new ground in developing a series of statistical approaches to the measurement of contracting out. Based on a solid theoretical framework, three new empirical measures of contracting out are presented. The results vary somewhat by method but the overall conclusion is that contracting out is an important phenomenon.

In this text some fundamental issues concerning the strategic impact of vertical structures of firms are discussed in a successive oligopoly model. Vertical integration strategy has been identified as one of the key strategies which determine the success or failure of enterprises. Many studies on vertical integration are based on business experiences and interviews with managers. However, the extensive application of game theory in business economics allows this study on vertical integration to be based on sound theoretic ground. Moreover, the significance of public enterprises in some Western European economies and the trends of economic transition in Eastern Europe justify the efforts to analyse vertical integration issues in the mixed market, which is created by the participation of a public firm into an industry otherwise characterised as a successive oligopoly.