Competition, capture, and proportionate entry rules

Module objectives

• Define the source’s pro-market, pro-business, and rent-seeking terms.
• Evaluate safety claims and licensing requirements proportionately.
• Calculate fixed-cost burdens and their limits.
• Analyse exclusivity incentives and follow-on entry.
• Operationalise four open-access reforms and fair transitions.

1. Detect entry barriers and regulatory capture

   About 75 minutes

   • Distinguish the book’s pro-business and pro-market definitions.
   • Explain rent-seeking without inferring it from every safety claim.
   • Calculate how fixed compliance costs affect differently sized firms.

2. Open access without abandoning public protection

   About 75 minutes

   • Evaluate the chapter’s old-money and intellectual-property claims.
   • Compare four open-access reforms and their risks.
   • Design entry reform that preserves safety, competition, and accountability.

Apply and defend

Open a protected local market

A fictional town requires a costly general licence for appliance repair, grants an incumbent exclusive access to service manuals, and renews all rules automatically. It also has evidence of a genuine electrical-safety hazard. Propose an entry reform.

What to produce

• A hazard-to-requirement and cost comparison.
• An assessment of exclusivity and feasible alternatives.
• A 600-word implementation plan covering all four open-access proposals, transition costs, and review.

Assessment criteria

Use these criteria for self-assessment or discussion with a tutor. The site does not certify this work or assign an automatic mark to written reasoning. Award full points for convincing evidence, about half for partial support, and zero for absent or contradicted evidence; explain intermediate scores and revise after feedback.

Total available: 20 points

Diagnosis 5 points

Distinguishes relevant safety requirements from unsupported exclusion.

Economic reasoning 5 points

Explains fixed costs, incumbency, creation incentives, and follow-on competition.

Implementation 5 points

Specifies portability, review, clarity, accountability, and proportionate entry.

Fair evaluation 5 points

Includes consumers, workers, entrants, safety, uncertainty, and evidence that could reverse the decision.

Source coverage

This map shows where the chapter’s argument, methods and exercises enter the course.

I. The Rent-Seeking Reflex

Lesson 1 defines rent-seeking, investigates occupational licensing, and quantifies fixed-cost regulatory moats; exercises compare risk-relevant requirements and proportionate alternatives. Study lesson

II. The Guilds Return: Occupational Licensing

Lesson 1 defines rent-seeking, investigates occupational licensing, and quantifies fixed-cost regulatory moats; exercises compare risk-relevant requirements and proportionate alternatives. Study lesson

III. Regulatory Capture: The Moat of Complexity

Lesson 1 defines rent-seeking, investigates occupational licensing, and quantifies fixed-cost regulatory moats; exercises compare risk-relevant requirements and proportionate alternatives. Study lesson

IV. The "Anti-Rich" Policies That Protect the Rich

Lesson 2 examines old/new-money claims, intellectual-property trade-offs, all four open-access proposals, and worker transitions; reform and exclusivity exercises test competing interests. Study lesson

V. Intellectual Property as a Forever Monopoly

Lesson 2 examines old/new-money claims, intellectual-property trade-offs, all four open-access proposals, and worker transitions; reform and exclusivity exercises test competing interests. Study lesson

VI. The Solution: Open Access

Lesson 2 examines old/new-money claims, intellectual-property trade-offs, all four open-access proposals, and worker transitions; reform and exclusivity exercises test competing interests. Study lesson

VII. Conclusion: The Dangerous Life of the Open Market

Lesson 2 examines old/new-money claims, intellectual-property trade-offs, all four open-access proposals, and worker transitions; reform and exclusivity exercises test competing interests. Study lesson

The Lesson Line

Lesson 2 examines old/new-money claims, intellectual-property trade-offs, all four open-access proposals, and worker transitions; reform and exclusivity exercises test competing interests. Study lesson

Chapter 18 Notes:

Lesson 2 identifies the empty printed Notes heading and explains the separately mapped footnotes 68–71, their support roles, and verification limits. Study lesson