Competition's New Clothes
20 Short Cases on Rivalry Between Firms

Lévêque recounts twenty revealing tales of real-life rivalry between firms across diverse industries, including wine, skiing, opera, video games and cruise liners. These entertaining and insightful narratives are informed by recent advances in economics, factoring in the many forces driving competition, including globalization and innovation. Divided into four sections, the book covers competition and the market; competition and variety; competition through innovation; and competition and equality. Read together, these stories also serve as building blocks to address the issue of whether competition between firms has entered a new era of increased intensity. This book will appeal to anyone, from company executives to consumers, who are interested in the economics of contemporary industry and want to incorporate a grasp of competition into their everyday decision-making. This book can also be used as a supplementary text in courses in microeconomics, business economics and industrial organisation.

Introduction; Part I. Competition and Market: 1. Three ski lessons for budding economists; 2. Containers conquering the world; 3. Casinos and one-armed bandits; 4. The great game of international gas; 5. The glamorous shipping market; 6. Intermezzo: the Earth is not that flat; Part II. Competition and Differentiation: 7. Coca-Cola versus Pepsi: the war is over; 8. A cruise in a gilded cage; 9. Lego's winning game; 10. Breakfast cereals invading space; 11. Four wine-economics tasting sessions; 12. Intermezzo: no end of differentiation; Part III. Competition and Innovation: 13. Uberizing the razor; 14. Coaches, BlaBlaCar and trains; 15. Apple versus Google, season one; 16. Apple versus Google, season two; 17. Super Mario can die, but like Nintendo he has several lives; 18. Intermezzo, on a theme of disruptive innovation; Part IV. Competition and Redistribution: 19. Bidding for soccer TV rights; 20. For and against fixed retail book prices; 21. Gyms running on empty; 22. Phantom economics at the opera; 23. Uber, or forget about taxis and drivers for a while; 24. Intermezzo on the redistributive effects of competition; Conclusion. The changing face of competition today.

François Lévêque is Professor of Economics at Mines ParisTech, Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres. He is also a part-time Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence. He founded Microeconomics, a Paris-based economics consultancy, which has recently joined Deloitte.