Understanding and Regulating the Market at a Time of Globalization

How and why does a market globalize? How do (antitrust) competition and trade policies speed up or slow down the process? How do producers and distributors take part in globalization? This book offers a clear understanding of the phenomenon based on a thorough study of the cement industry. For a long time, this industry has been considered a model of spatial competition in economic textbooks. Although the industry has been inherently local due to transportation costs, it globalized in the 1980s. Hence, the originality of a book which highlights the fundamental characteristics of globalization. It does so combining various methodological approaches: an historical analysis of the cement markets dynamics since 1945, and a review of competition and trade policy cases (EC, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the UK and the USA); a comparative trade block analysis (EC, Japan and USA); an analysis coupling the findings of theoretical works with the viewpoint of the business community (interviews and industry magazines). This book raises important issues often neglected by academics and regulatory authorities, in particular the importance of multimarket rivalry.