Prior to liberalization, there was little scope for predatory behaviour in the aviation market. However, following deregulation, new entrants sought to compete with entrenched incumbents. Low-cost carriers (LCCs) gained significant market share, which in turn provoked many different kinds of defensive response. Having put pressure on established carriers, low-cost airlines are themselves feeling the pressure of competition from new operators. While it is normal and natural for airlines to react to competition - modifying their services, the ways in which they offer them and their prices - when does aggressive commercial behaviour go too far and become predation? This book considers what exactly is meant by 'predation' in the aviation environment, and explores the strategies LCCs adopt in order to gain market share, as well as the strategies of the established airlines in response to competition from new entrants to the market. It also addresses the key question of what competition policy should do to ensure intensive competition. Competition versus Predation in Aviation Markets brings together contributions from around the world, from airlines, government agencies, leading academics and consultants, providing a wealth of perspectives on a business practice crucial to airline survival.

Prior to liberalization, there was little scope for predatory behaviour in the aviation market. However, following deregulation, new entrants sought to compete with entrenched incumbents. Low-cost carriers (LCCs) gained significant market share, which in turn provoked many different kinds of defensive response. Having put pressure on established carriers, low-cost airlines are themselves feeling the pressure of competition from new operators. While it is normal and natural for airlines to react to competition - modifying their services, the ways in which they offer them and their prices - when does aggressive commercial behaviour go too far and become predation? This book considers what exactly is meant by 'predation' in the aviation environment, and explores the strategies LCCs adopt in order to gain market share, as well as the strategies of the established airlines in response to competition from new entrants to the market. It also addresses the key question of what competition policy should do to ensure intensive competition. Competition versus Predation in Aviation Markets brings together contributions from around the world, from airlines, government agencies, leading academics and consultants, providing a wealth of perspectives on a business practice crucial to airline survival.

This tour d'horizon book reviews airport regulation and competition in different regions of the world and contrasts different policy perspectives. Organized in four parts, the first three examine, in turn, Australasia, North America, and Europe, while the last section looks at the institutional reforms that have taken place in these regions. The book covers the regulation of airports, and competition in different regions, as well as privatization policy, the interaction between airports and airlines, and regional economic impacts. It also examines the linkages between governance structures and forms of regulation. The book's global sweep embraces all the large aviation markets, bringing together the ideas and challenges of academic economists, airlines, airport managers, consultants and government regulators. As well as looking at different methods, degrees and paradigms of regulation it also spells out the stress-points, in a way that makes essential reading for airport operators, airline operations staff, as well as academic economists concerned with transport studies. It also offers interesting reading and important lessons for those concerned with regulation of the utility industries such as, telecommunications, water and power generation and distribution - where infrastructure can be subject to natural monopoly characteristics and where firms competing in downstream markets are dependent on the investment and operational strategies of the upstream infrastructure operator.

Although Imperial Germany was begun before the United States entered World War I, little in the book however relates to that particular conflict. Rather, this is in large part a study of the divergencies in cultural development between the English-speaking peoples and the German-speaking peoples, and of the consequences this produced in economic and social spheres. Suppressed by war censors, Imperial Germany was again released after the war, and has assumed a place as a major contribution to economics and sociology alike.

The comments on the book have scarcely been altered by time. Charles A. Beard noted that "Veblen wrote for the centuries, not for the days, and his Imperial Germany ranks with his immortal Theory of Business Enterprise." Wesley C. Mitchell, reflecting on the book during World War II, wrote that "the natural causes that made Imperial Germany efficient are still at work under the Nazi regime, and the forecast that proved sound once may do so again." Lewis Mumford called Imperial Germany "still the best picture of the residual barbarisms in German civilization; the soil out of which Nazism grew."

This new edition is graced with a brilliant and insightful opening essay that is at once a commentary on Veblen's volume, and a statement of the historic status of the German economy and society. Written by Otto G. Mayer, director in a leading German "Think Tank," HWWA-Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung-Hamburg, editor of Intereconomics, a journal issued in English, and an author of major policy statements on economic and social issues, the new opening statement underscores the view of those who came before, that Veblen's book is "a treasure chest of knowledge."

Aviation versus Environment? Late public discussion of this issue did not even put a questionmark. The suspected vast effects of air traffic on global environmental problems such as climate change or ozone layer depletion led to an urgent demand for both practical solutions and a political framework for the conduct of airports and airlines. This book contains the expertise of environmental organisations, politicians, airline and airport managers who discussed these issues on the second Hamburg Aviation Conference, held on February 17 - 19, 1999. Taking into account the environmental and economic needs for air traffic, the conference was a stage for a constructive debate between aviation business and environmentalists and showed a broad range of measures in regard of environmental problems linked with aviation.