SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Data and digital platforms have simultaneously upended entrenched positions in some industries, opening-up greater and disruptive competition, while driving overall higher levels of concentration through the growing power of multi-sided digital platforms. The coexistence of rivalry and collusion – a key feature of Cowling’s monopoly capitalism – persists and takes new forms in the digital economy. Taking into account the heterogenous nature of platforms, this paper analyses the relationships between large digital platforms and the development of industrial capabilities, especially in middle-income countries and the implications for industrial and competition policies. We advance an analytical-policy framework connecting the different dimensions and sources of platform power responsible for value capture and extraction, and the different platform capability-functions responsible for value creation. Building on this recasting of Hymer’s ‘efficiency contradiction’ and Cowling theory of monopoly capitalism, we advance an integrated industrial-competition policy approach to overcome it and propose a conception of an ‘entrepreneurial-regulatory state’. Complementary industrial and competition policies are required to foster optimal rivalry, being a rivalry which rewards the development of dynamic capabilities and enables contestation by different business models.