No antitrust case in recent history has attracted as much public attention as U.S v. Microsoft Corp. Nor has any antitrust case in memory raised as many complex, substantive issues of law, economics and public policy. Microsoft, Antitrust and the New Economy: Selected Essays constitutes an early effort to analyze some of the central issues and to put the case in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of government in managing markets - especially in technology driven New Economy industries. All of these essays, it should be noted, are written by critics of the government's efforts to regulate Microsoft. Indeed, many are by individuals who were closely involved in the company's legal defense and served as consultants to Microsoft. But their work should be judged on the merits rather than their provenance. For all represent serious scholarship by researchers committed to advancing the debate over government regulatory policies.

No antitrust case in recent history has attracted as much public attention as U.S v. Microsoft Corp. Nor has any antitrust case in memory raised as many complex, substantive issues of law, economics and public policy. Microsoft, Antitrust and the New Economy: Selected Essays constitutes an early effort to analyze some of the central issues and to put the case in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of government in managing markets - especially in technology driven New Economy industries.
All of these essays, it should be noted, are written by critics of the government's efforts to regulate Microsoft. Indeed, many are by individuals who were closely involved in the company's legal defense and served as consultants to Microsoft. But their work should be judged on the merits rather than their provenance. For all represent serious scholarship by researchers committed to advancing the debate over government regulatory policies.

By day, every year over 40,000 visitors pour in. Across the Rio Grande, a hundred miles away, Mexican mountaineers use the white domes as landmarks. By night, perched almost 7,000 feet above the sleeping, earthbound world, astronomers probe the secrets of the night sky. This is the University of Texas McDonald Observatory, one of the world's largest university-operated astronomical installations.

Big and Bright: A History of the McDonald Observatory is the story of a remarkable collaboration between two major universities, one a prestigious private school, the other a growing southwestern state institution. The University of Chicago had astronomers, but its Yerkes Observatory was aging and underfunded; the University of Texas had money for an observatory but no working astronomer to staff it. Out of their mutual need, they formed a thirty-year compact for a joint venture. Unusual in its day, the Yerkes-McDonald connection presaged the future. In this arrangement, one can see some of the beginnings of today's consortium "big science."

Now the McDonald Observatory's early history can be put in proper perspective. Blessed with a gifted and driving founding director, the world's (then) second-largest telescope, and an isolation that permitted it to be virtually the only major astronomical observatory that continued operations throughout World War II, the staff of McDonald Observatory helped lay the foundations of modern astrophysics during the 1940s. For over a decade after the war, a lonely mountaintop in West Texas was the mecca that drew nearly all the most important astronomers from all over the world.

Based on personal reminiscences and archival material, as well as published historical sources, Big and Bright is one of the few histories of a major observatory, unique in its focus on the human side of the story.

Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Economists call matchmakers multisided platforms because they provide physical or virtual platforms for multiple groups to get together. Dating sites connect people with potential matches, for example, and ride-sharing apps do the same for drivers and riders. Although matchmakers have been around for millennia, they're becoming more and more popular--and profitable--due to dramatic advances in technology, and a lot of companies that have managed to crack the code of this business model have become today's power brokers. Don't let the flashy successes fool you, though. Starting a matchmaker is one of the toughest business challenges, and almost everyone who tries to build one, fails. In Matchmakers, David Evans and Richard Schmalensee, two economists who were among the first to analyze multisided platforms and discover their principles, and who've consulted for some of the most successful platform businesses in the world, explain how matchmakers work best in practice, why they do what they do, and how entrepreneurs can improve their chances for success. Whether you're an entrepreneur, an investor, a consumer, or an executive, your future will involve more and more multisided platforms, and Matchmakers--rich with stories from platform winners and losers--is the one book you'll need in order to navigate this appealing but confusing world.

Interchange fees have become increasingly controversial. These fees constitute the bulk of the cost that merchants incur for taking cards because most consumers pay with a card from a four-party system that assesses these fees. The total interchange fees paid by merchants have increased dramatically as consumers have switched to electronic payments. Merchants have complained, have filed lawsuits, and have lobbied governments to do something about this. Meanwhile governments around the world have intensified their examination of these fees. For example, the US Congress passed legislation in 2010 that required the Federal Reserve Board to regulate debit card interchange fees; the Reserve Bank of Australia decided to regulate credit card interchange fees in 2002 after concluding that a market failure had resulted in merchants paying fees that were too high; and in 2007 the European Commission ruled that MasterCard's interchange fees violated the EU's antitrust laws. The controversy raises two broad issues. The first relates to how payment card systems decide how much merchants should pay for taking cards either through the interchange fee for four-party systems or the merchant discount for three party systems. The second concerns whether the setting of interchange fees by private businesses results in a market failure and if so what if any regulation should be adopted to correct this market failure. This interchange fee debate helped stimulate a new literature on multi-sided platforms or what are sometimes called two-sided markets. Payment card systems serve as intermediaries between merchants and consumers and operate a platform that enables these two different kinds of customers to interact. It turns out that there are many other businesses that have similar features including software platforms like the iPhone OS, shopping malls, search engines, and exchanges. Economists have developed general models of multi-sided businesses and applied them to payment cards.

Given the subject of this collection, there is some irony in how I've chosen to bring these essays to you. Publishing has traditionally been a two-sided model. Publishers get authors and readers together. They typically make their money by charging the reader and giving some fraction of the earnings to the author as royalties. This 20th century model of publishing doesn't serve authors of academic books well. Often, publishers set the price of academic books relatively high, expecting to earn the greatest profits from libraries and a handful of aficionados. For most books that aren't aimed towards a popular audience, including most academic books, royalties are quite small. Optimistically, I might have been able to buy a pretty good new bicycle if I had published these essays in the traditional fashion, but I'd rather have more people read my work than collect the chump change from royalties. Therefore, the two-sided publishing model fails in two ways: the author doesn't make much money, and the author doesn't get read by very many people. Moreover, most publishers in my experience are still using 20th century technology to produce and distribute books. It can take many months-if not years-from a book's conception to its appearance in a reader's hands.And therein lies the paradox. In order to bring my work into the 21st century, I have decided to publish my collection of essays about two-sided markets in a one-sided way. I ditched the intermediary and chose to connect directly with likely readers. I'm sure some of you would prefer the feel of paper and leather but hopefully the price is right. It was easy for me to decide to make this volume free (a bit more on Amazon) because it cost almost nothing to produce and distribute it. An earlier version of this book appeared in 2010. It consisted of a series of urls (website addresses) that took readers to the original papers which they could then download. I promised a real e-book in the early part of 2011. At least I got the year right which for an economist is pretty good.

Harnessing the power of software platforms: what executives and entrepreneurs must know about how to use this technology to transform industries and how to develop the strategies that will create value and drive profits. Software platforms are the invisible engines that have created, touched, or transformed nearly every major industry for the past quarter century. They power everything from mobile phones and automobile navigation systems to search engines and web portals. They have been the source of enormous value to consumers and helped some entrepreneurs build great fortunes. And they are likely to drive change that will dwarf the business and technology revolution we have seen to this point. Invisible Engines examines the business dynamics and strategies used by firms that recognize the transformative power unleashed by this new revolution-a revolution that will change both new and old industries. The authors argue that in order to understand the successes of software platforms, we must first understand their role as a technological meeting ground where application developers and end users converge. Apple, Microsoft, and Google, for example, charge developers little or nothing for using their platforms and make most of their money from end users; Sony PlayStation and other game consoles, by contrast, subsidize users and make more money from developers, who pay royalties for access to the code they need to write games. More applications attract more users, and more users attract more applications. And more applications and more users lead to more profits. Invisible Engines explores this story through the lens of the companies that have mastered this platform-balancing act. It offers detailed studies of the personal computer, video game console, personal digital assistant, smart mobile phone, and digital media software platform industries, focusing on the business decisions made by industry players to drive profits and stay a step ahead of the competition. Shorter discussions of Internet-based software platforms provide an important glimpse into a future in which the way we buy, pay, watch, listen, learn, and communicate will change forever. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.

United States v. Microsoft is arguably the most important antitrust case of the past decade. It will have major implications for how governments regulate information technologies and the coming Internet explosion. It will also have important consequences for how businesses behave in the marketplace and in the political arena. In this volume, key economists for the government and for the Microsoft Corporation lay out their views on the key issues and then respond to the views presented by the opposing side. The analysis illuminates many of the complex issues involved in assessing the appropriate scope for antitrust intervention in information technology industries.

Sir John Herschel, one of the founders of Southern Hemisphere astronomy, was a man of extraordinarily wide interests. He made contributions to botany, geology, and ornithology, as well as to astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics. Throughout his scientific career he kept a diary, recording his public and private life. The diaries from 1834 to 1838, years spent making astronomical observations at the Cape of Good Hope, are reproduced in this book and prove to be much more than an ordinary scientist's logbook. They present personal and social history, literary commentaries, the results of close observations of nature and numerous scientific experiments, the excitement of travel, political intrigues, gossip, and philosophical reflections-all interpreted through an alert and versatile mind. In the present transcription, the material has been enriched with selected correspondence of Sir John and his wife Lady Herschel (nee Margaret Brodie Stewart). Sir John devoted his working time at the Cape primarily to a systematic observation of the southern sky, complementing his earlier "sweeping" of the northern sky at Slough, England. He later became one of the founders of photography, but at the Cape he used a simple optical device, the camera lucida, in the production of numerous landscape drawings. Many of these, along with reproductions of sketches contained in the diaries and botanical drawings made by Sir John and Lady Herschel, are used to illustrate this book. Sir John was also a leading spirit in the foundation of the educational system of the Cape and a supporter of exploratory expeditions into the interior. As the son of Sir William Herschel, in his day the most famous British astronomer and the discoverer of the planet Uranus, Sir John was already celebrated when he arrived from England. Every individual of note, resident at the Cape or visiting, went to see him. He was supported in his work by his wife, who ran an enormous establishment and bore a huge family, but who nevertheless found time to travel in the country round the western Cape with him and to assist in his observations. The diaries and letters are supplemented by especially valuable editorial notes that provide much needed and highly interesting information concerning persons and events mentioned and described by Sir John. All the original manuscript material used in this volume is held by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Sir John's camera lucida drawings are from the South African Public Library in Cape Town.