Books on the topic 'Digital market regulation'

The communications industry is one of the most important sectors of economy in conditions of digitalization, which becomes the basis for further innovative development, to a large extent depends on adequate legal regulation and state participation. In the presented scientific and practical Handbook gives a General characteristic of the legal regulation in the field of communications in the Russian Federation, covers the approaches to state regulation and deregulation of the industry. A separate Chapter is devoted to questions of regulation of communication services of new generation, the analysis of the relevant contractual structures. Deals with the foreign and international experience, identifies trends of legal regulation of relations in the age of digital economy, ways of overcoming of contradictions between the market and legal constraints. Proposals on modernization of legislation in accordance with new conditions and possibilities of technical progress. For researchers, practitioners, professionals engaged in law enforcement and legislative activities, teachers, students and postgraduates of law schools and faculties.

The monograph presents an extensive study of new forms of labor organization in the context of the development of technical, technological, financial, economic and socio-cultural factors. The distinctive features of digital labor platforms, their classification, as well as the strategies of key players in the global and Russian-speaking distance labor markets are given. Based on the analysis of current international analytical reviews, foreign and domestic scientific publications, current legislation and court decisions, the author gives approaches and methods of regulatory regulation of platform labor. The author does not ignore such controversial issues as: direct and indirect methods of state influence on the activities of digital labor platforms, problems of social responsibility, as well as prospects for the development of platform cooperativism in the world and Russia as an alternative to labor platforms focused on the global level. It is of interest to researchers, government authorities, teachers of higher educational institutions, graduate students and students studying these problems.

This open access book offers a comparative and inter-disciplinary perspective on the unique competition law challenges presented by the converged digital markets. Following the digitalisation of even the most traditional bricks-and-mortar sectors of the economy, a well-functioning internal market can only be guaranteed by ensuring the competitiveness of the digital markets. What role do intellectual property law and competition law play in this digital world? How can a more economic analysis strengthen innovation policies to achieve a truly competitive digital single market? The book provides a rigorous discussion of the many reasons why the regulatory responses, not just in Europe but in other jurisdictions too, may fall short. It addresses an array of procedural, substantive and other issues that are generating intense debate across the antitrust community. This includes the scope and objectives of digital regulation, whether the application of ex-ante rules would result in fragmentation and inconsistencies, and whether such regulatory regimes are an appropriate tool for substantive assessment. The book explores whether the application of these rules would effectively tackle the contestability-related concerns in the platform markets, whether they can be applied without undermining other rights such as privacy, and whether they are appropriate for this digital age as well as the new digital era ahead of us. Part 1 offers a detailed inter-disciplinary perspective on the most recent legislative solutions in the European Union, namely, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the Data Act. Part 2 offers competition and regulatory responses to these ever-emerging digital challenges by the UK, US, Latin American, Indian and Chinese regulators.

The rules on the EU's digital single market are a milestone in consumer protection. They have harmonised the provision of digital content and online sales across Europe. The new commentary on "EU Digital Law" comments, article by article, on the most important European regulations on digital law in the EU: the Digital Content Directive; the EU Consumer Rights Directive; the E-Commerce Directive; the Portability Regulation. The legal framework for digital content is being fundamentally redefined. The authors are experts from all over the EU. Their contributions provide detailed explanations of the background and purpose of the provisions and show concrete ways of implementing them.

Abstract The EU Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Services (Digital Services Act, the ‘DSA’) is a comprehensive legal framework to regulate digital services and to tackle illegal activity online across the EU. The DSA represents one of the main pillars of the EU’s reform of the digital single market. It applies horizontally to online intermediaries operating in the EU, including online platforms such as social media, video-sharing platforms, online marketplaces, and search engines. This book serves as a reference work on the DSA, providing a comprehensive article-by-article analysis that will allow the reader to navigate the provisions of this new, complex legal act. While being novel, the DSA does not enter a completely unchartered territory: numerous provisions draw inspiration from, or are applied together with, the provisions of other Acts and areas of EU law. The book explores the jurisprudential origins of the provisions of the DSA and their articulation with other EU Acts, which will be essential for its interpretation and application. It strikes a balance between a practical commentary and an academic analysis, and it is aimed at legal practitioners, academics, and public authorities.

This book poses the question: do we need a new body of regulations and the constitution of new regulatory agents to face the evolution of money in the Fourth Industrial Revolution? After the Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent introduction of Distributed Ledger Technologies in monetary matters, multiple opinions claim that we are in the middle of a financial revolution that will eliminate the need for central banks and other financial institutions to form bonds of trust on our behalf. In contrast to these arguments, this book argues that we are not witnessing a revolutionary expression, but an evolutionary one that we can trace back to the very origin of money. Accordingly, the book provides academics, regulators and policy makers with a multidisciplinary analysis that includes elements such as the relevance of intellectual property rights, which are disregarded in the legal analysis of money. Furthermore, the book proposes the idea that traditional analyses on the exercise of the lex monetae ignore the role of inside monies and technological infrastructures developed and supported by the private sector, as exemplified in the evolution of the cryptoassets market and in cases such as Banco de Portugal v Waterlow & Sons. The book puts forward a proposal for the design and regulation of new payment systems and invites the reader to look beyond the dissemination of individual Distributed Ledger Technologies such as Bitcoin. Hart Studies in Commercial and Financial Law: Volume 13

In many economic sectors – the digital industries being first and foremost – the market power of dominant firms has been steadily increasing and is rarely challenged by competitors. Existing competition laws and regulations have been unable to make markets more contestable. The book argues that a new competition tool is needed: market investigations. This tool allows authorities to intervene in markets which do not function as they should, due to market features such as network effects, scale economies, switching costs, and behavioural biases. The book explains the role of market investigations, assesses their use in the few jurisdictions where they exist, and discusses how they should be designed. In so doing, it provides an invaluable and timely instrument to both practitioners and academics.

“This content is not available in your country.” Media consumers around the world regularly run into this reminder of geography’s imprint on digital culture. Despite utopian hopes of a borderless digital society in an era of globalization, DVDs, video games, and streaming platforms include digital rights management mechanisms like region codes and IP address detection systems that block media access within certain territories. Although propped up by national and transnational intellectual property regulation, these technologies of “regional lockout” are designed primarily to keep the entertainment industries’ global markets distinct. Beyond this, they frustrate consumers around the world and place certain territories on a hierarchy of global media access. Drawing on extensive research of media-industry strategies, consumer and retailer practices, and media regulation, Locked Out explores regional lockout in DVDs, console video games, and streaming video and music platforms. The book argues that regional lockout has shaped global media culture over the past few decades in three interrelated ways: as technological regulation, media distribution, and geocultural discrimination. As a form of digital rights management, regional lockout builds in limitations on the affordances of digital software and hardware. As distribution, it seeks to ensure that digital technologies accommodate media industries’ traditional segmentation of markets. Finally, as a cultural system, regional lockout shapes and reflects long-standing global hierarchies of power and discrimination.

To date, world antitrust and regulatory agencies have invariably described large technology companies—such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook—as dominant, bottleneck or gatekeeping companies comparable to the textbook monopolists of the early twentieth century. They have proceeded on this basis to discipline their business activities with unprecedented financial penalties and other regulatory obligations. This “techlash” is the subject of this book. Proceeding from the observation that big tech firms engage in both monopoly and oligopoly competition across digital markets, the book introduces a theory of moligopoly competition. It suggests that rivalry-spirited antitrust and regulatory laws are both conceptually and methodologically impervious to the competitive pressure that bears on big tech firms, resulting in a risk of well-intended but irrelevant policy intervention. The book proposes a refocusing of competition policy towards certain types of tipped markets where digital firms extract monopoly rents, and careful adoption of regulation toward other social harms generated by big tech’s business models.

Virtually all enterprises are regulated in a host of ways and regulation is crucial not merely to economic success but to protecting consumer, worker, environmental, and an array of other interests. Regulation, though, is often seen negatively: as a tiresome interference with entrepreneurial activity. This negative vision is unhelpful in addressing business and other needs for productive forms of regulation. Taming the Corporation offers an alternative, positive, vision of regulation. It stresses the role of good regulation in allowing businesses to flourish, serve markets effectively, and respect broader interests. This paves the way for more productive regulatory designs. It looks at the characteristics of good regulation and provides businesses, consumers, and citizens with the arguments that they need when they push for regulatory controls that serve their needs. Understandings of regulation are also served by looking at the potentially positive roles of control strategies ranging from ‘command laws’ to ‘nudges’. The book, in addition, provides a more detailed examination of three key regulatory challenges in the modern world: regulating for sustainability; addressing global warming; and controlling digital platforms. Taming the Corporation offers a new vision of regulation—as a positive way to steer corporate power in productive and useful directions. It turns the traditional regulation discussion on its head. Regulatory theories are discussed but the book also uses numerous case examples to illustrate and address real life challenges.

This volume brings together the German national reports on the topics of the XXIX FIDE Congress. They deal with three current Union law issue areas: The role of national courts in the enforcement of Union law (application between private parties, primacy of application, principle of mutual recognition, judicial independence, effective judicial protection, duty of referral to the ECJ); the new EU data protection regime (the national concretisation of responsibilities, rights and enforcement as well as data processing for national security purposes); the digital economy as a challenge for EU competition law (antitrust relevance, market definition and market power, anti-competitive behaviour, ex-post enforcement and ex-ante regulation).

The conference transcript deals with current challenges facing the legal fields of intellectual property, media, competition and data protection law, primarily due to technical developments and the resulting changes in legislation. Examples of this are artificial intelligence systems that call into question essential principles of current patent and copyright law. However, it also deals with questions concerning the legal classification of search engines, social bots and other internet intermediaries, as well as questions of the data protection requirements for bloggers, street photographers and credit scoring, which need to be clarified in particular by the new General Data Protection Regulation. The book also focuses on the regulatory options for "Industry 4.0" data markets and the new directive on copyright in the digital single market. With contributions by Stefan Papastefanou, David Linke, Katrin Giere und Dorothea Heilmann, Azim Semizoglu, Hanno Magnus, Jens Milker, Stefan Michel, Katharina Wunner, André Reinelt, David Kleß, Tobias Endrich-Laimböck, Justus Duhnkrack, Susan Bischoff

Digital platforms have come under intense scrutiny from scholars, policy makers, regulators, and the general public for their immense and yet largely opaque influence on the social and economic sphere. This book advances value-form and social-form directions in Marxian theory, moving beyond mainstream economic reasoning that informs much of the debate. Digital monopoly platforms such as Google and Facebook are analysed in light of their profit seeking behaviour and monetary flows generated primarily through advertising and data commodification. Considering the unity of production and circulation the book argues that outputs are better understood as a collection of different types of social forms shaped by capital (pre, intermediate and final commodities) and as forms of public wealth (Copyleft Free Software, publicly financed science and research). The authors critically engage with Marxian theories that conceptualise user activities as forms of digital labour, with zero-price markets and critical legal theories, as well as with ‘internet exceptionalism’ in various forms. The role of regulation of production, especially of financial markets and monopolies is critically discussed with an empirical analysis of the development of GAFAM companies, Google’s mandatory reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and of digital advertising of Google and Facebook. The book discusses contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, limits of ongoing reform initiatives, and alternatives to the logic of capital and commodity production on digital platforms.

This book explores the complexity and depths of our digital world by providing a selection of analyses and discussions from the 16th annual international conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP): Ideas that Drive Our Digital World. The first half of the book focuses on issues related to the GDPR and data. These chapters provide a critical analysis of the 5-year history of the complex GDPR enforcement system, covering: codes of conduct as a potential co-regulation instrument for the market; an interdisciplinary approach to privacy assessment on synthetic data; the ethical implications of secondary use of publicly available personal data; and automating technologies and GDPR compliance. The second half of the book shifts focus to novel issues and ideas that drive our digital world. The chapters offer analyses on social and environmental sustainability of smart cities; reconstructing states as information platforms; stakeholder identification using the example of video-based Active and Assisted Living (AAL); and a human-centred approach to dark patterns. This interdisciplinary book takes readers on an intellectual journey into a wide range of issues and cutting-edge ideas to tackle our ever-evolving digital landscape.

This book argues that US democracy presumes a news industry but that industry currently is failing. It focuses on the contributions of digital platforms and legal rules to the current situation and on the government's responsibilities for alleviating the problem. As the book shows, the First Amendment of the US Constitution assumes the existence and durability of a private industry. Despite some concerns that government action now is not permitted, nothing in the Constitution forecloses government action to regulate concentrated economic power, to require disclosure of who is financing communications, or to support news initiatives where there are market failures. Moreover, the federal government always been involved in shaping the media environment; it has contributed financial resources, laws, and regulations to develop and shape media in the United States. The government has subsidized development of the internet and crafted legal immunities for digital platforms; the government has crafted the direction and contours of America's media ecosystem. The shift of people’s attention to media platforms that borrow news stories without paying for them and spread misinformation jeopardizes journalism, reliable news sources, and the very respect for truth-telling. To maintain government accountability and inform a public as required in a democracy, The book outlines an array of reforms, including a new fairness doctrine, regulating digital platforms as public utilities, using antitrust authority to regulate the media, policing fraud, and more robust funding of public media. As the text stresses, such reforms are not merely plausible ideas; they are the kinds of initiatives needed if the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press continues to hold meaning in the twenty-first century.

The Monopolies Commission's Biennial Report XXIII, titled “Competition 2020”, analyses how distortions of competition in the internal market, which are caused by subsidies granted by third countries such as China, can be reduced. It proposes the introduction of an instrument that aims to control such third country subsidies. In the Corona crisis, competition law should continue to be applied with no compromises as to substantive law, and rescue packages granted by the State should be accompanied by measures to promote competition. With regard to the digital platform economy, the Commission endorses the introduction of ex ante regulation of dominant companies at EU level. The sector exemption for hospital mergers, as proposed in the context of the 10th amendment to the German Competition Act (GWB), is rejected. Further, the Report includes an analysis of the economic concentration in Germany and of the decision-making practice in competition law in the past two years.

The last few decades have witnessed profound changes in the structure, content, technology, regulation and cultural forms of European television industries. Television in Europe operates in an increasingly globalised communications market characterised by commercialisation, fragmentation and transnational ownership. Digital transmission has resulted in an abundance of televisual offerings, operating in a less heavily regulated dual system of competitive private and publicly owned television channels. While these changes offer vast opportunities to both organisations and consumer-citizens in terms of access and choice, they also bring about uncertainties about the future shape of the medium. How will television be funded and watched in the future? Will public broadcasting survive in the modern era? Will consumers respond to technological developments? How can regulation encourage investment, uphold quality and effectively address concentration of media ownership? What is Europe’s position within a global television marketplace? European Television Industries addresses these issues in the context of developments in technology, changing ownership patterns, legislative change and the much heralded likelihood of convergence between telecommunications, broadcasting and computing. Concentrating on the historical, economic, cultural, technological, and political factors behind change, the book provides an opportunity to construct a conceptual and analytical base on which to judge future developments in television in Europe. Designed for academics, practitioners and students, this book critically evaluates models, frameworks, debates and observations relating to the future of the medium.

Choice is a key concept of our time. It is a foundational mechanism for every legal order in societies that are, politically, constituted as democracies and, economically, built on the market mechanism. Thus, choice can be understood as an atomic structure that grounds core societal processes. In recent years, however, the debate over the right way to theorise choice—for example, as a rational or a behavioural type of decision making—has intensified. This collection therefore provides an in-depth discussion of the promises and perils of specific types of theories of choice. It shows how the selection of a specific theory of choice can make a difference for concrete legal questions, in particularly in the regulation of the digital economy or in choosing between market, firm, or network. In its first part, the volume provides an accessible overview of the current debates about rational versus behavioural approaches to theories of choice. The remainder of the book structures the vast landscape of theories of choice along three main types: individual, collective, and organisational decision making. As theories of choice proliferate and become ever more sophisticated, however, the process of choosing an adequate theory of choice becomes increasingly intricate, too. This volume addresses this selection problem for the various legal arenas in which individual, organisational, and collective decisions matter. By drawing on economic, technological, political, and legal points of view, the volume shows which theories of choice are at the disposal of the legally relevant decision maker, and how they can be implemented for the solution of concrete legal problems.

This book offers new perspectives on how to take analytic tools from the realm of academic research out into the real world to address pressing policy questions. As the chapters discuss, political polarization, regional conflicts, climate change, and the dramatic technological breakthroughs of the digital age have all left the standard tools of regulation floundering in the twenty-first century. These failures have, in turn, precipitated significant questions about the fundamentals of law and economics. The chapters address law and economics in diverse settings and situations, including central banking and the use of capital controls, fighting corruption in China, rural credit markets in India, pawnshops in the United States, the limitations of antitrust law, and the role of international monetary regimes. Collectively, the chapters rethink how the insights of law and economics can inform policies that provide individuals with the space and means to work, innovate, and prosper — while guiding states and international organization to regulate in ways that limit conflict, reduce national and global inequality, and ensure fairness.

Digital platforms are becoming increasingly relevant for the constitution of markets. As they can be used in a multifunctional way, platforms are also having a massive impact on the provision and dissemination of both public and private information. Moreover, they are playing a significant role in social exchange. Platforms that facilitate the provision and dissemination of media content and journalistic work are having both economic and cultural effects on the traditional media and communications industry, which is becoming irrelevant and losing income from advertising and users. Social media platforms, such as Facebook, especially are becoming important means for certain social groups to acquire up-to-date information. Platforms and their growth and development are influencing both the traditional media and journalism, which is becoming clear from the growing financial crisis these two sectors are experiencing. The unfolding transformation process is having diverse effects on both the public sphere and on information and communication processes, which in turn is affecting liberal democracy. These changes require specific attention in both interdisciplinary research and politics (the design of a media and communications landscape, regulation, etc.). With contributions by Klaus Beck, Patrick Donges, Otfried Jarren, Katharina von Kleinen-Königslow, Frank Löbigs, Christoph Neuberger, Manuel Puppis

This book provides the first comprehensive account of the New EU Competition Law: an emerging understanding of the discipline that breaks from the consensus of the early 2000s and that ventures into uncharted territories. Competition law has undergone fundamental transformations in the past decade, from the rise and fall of the ‘effects-based approach’ to the challenge of Big Tech and the growing interaction with intellectual property. Making sense of these changes and fully grasping their implications can be difficult. The book discusses the shift from traditional enforcement in the industrial era to the sort of intervention that a knowledge-based economy demands. It presents the changes that the field is undergoing (policy priorities, relationship with regulation and intangible assets, move away from efficiency and consumer welfare) and illustrates them by reference to the most significant developments. The analysis includes an up-to-date evaluation of the Digital Markets Act and addresses the application of EU competition law to key areas, including energy, pharma, telecommunications and online platforms. Conceived as a ‘modular’ book, practitioners and advanced students will find it useful as a map to navigate the underlying trends and as an in-depth dissection of the key case law and administrative practice of the past decade.

The 2nd edition of this book provides an updated comprehensive analysis of the European Commission’s dawn raid practices from a due process perspective. Examining the obligations imposed by the Charter and the ECHR and the response of the Luxembourg and Strasbourg Courts, the book shows that whereas the Strasbourg Court manages to strike a balance between efficiency concerns and fundamental rights, the approach of the EU Courts is not equally balanced. The dawn raid is a powerful tool on which the European Commission relies heavily in its antitrust investigations. In 2022, the Commission carried out dawn raids in private homes for the first time in many years and it has declared its intent to make greater use of the power to inspect private premises. Furthermore, the European Commission is expanding its dawn raid practices into new areas of law. Both the Digital Markets Act and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation empower the Commission to carry out dawn raids and to impose heavy fines on anyone failing to cooperate. Ensuring adequate procedural safeguards is therefore more important than ever. The book provides an essential and timely examination of this important subject, and is of great practical interest to companies, practitioners, and enforcers. It is also of theoretical interest, offering stimulating reflections on the effectiveness and legitimacy of the Commission’s enforcement powers.

Abstract The second edition of this book provides an article-by-article summary of the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to reflect the latest developments in the law since publication of the first edition. It offers a quick reference to the provisions of the treaties, how they are interpreted and applied in practice, and to the most important legal instruments enacted on their basis. The book considers key developments in all areas of EU law, including the debates and requirements around the rule of law, legal decisions in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change measures such as the European Green Deal, as well as recent changes to the Common Agricultural Policy. It also includes significant court rulings on freedom, security and justice, migration and asylum, as well as issues relating to freedom of movement and Brexit. The new edition outlines the Digital Markets Act, a major piece of legislation adopted in 2022 and contains significant updates on EU competition law in the light of new Regulations and Guidelines. It offers expert guidance to practitioners and academics seeking fast access to the Treaties, secondary law, and current practice. The book follows a set structure, offering a short overview of the Article, the Article text itself, a key references list including essential case law and legislation, followed by a structured commentary on the Article.

Economy and mankind are inextricably interlinked. Just as the economy or the production of material wealth is unimaginable without a man, so human existence and development are impossible without the wealth created in the economy. Shortly, both the goal and the means of achieving and realization of the economy are still the human resources. People have long ago noticed that it was the economy that created livelihoods, and the delays in their production led to the catastrophic events such as hunger, poverty, civil wars, social upheavals, revolutions, moral degeneration, and more. Therefore, the special interest of people in understanding the regulatory framework of the functioning of the economy has existed and exists in all historical epochs [A. Sisvadze. Economic theory. Part One. 2006y. p. 22]. The system of economic disciplines studies economy or economic activities of a society. All of them are based on science, which is currently called economic theory in the post-socialist space (the science of economics, the principles of economics or modern economics), and in most countries of the world - predominantly in the Greek-Latin manner - economics. The title of the present book is also Modern Economics. Economics (economic theory) is the science that studies the efficient use of limited resources to produce and distribute goods and services in order to satisfy as much as possible the unlimited needs and demands of the society. More simply, economics is the science of choice and how society manages its limited resources. Moreover, it should be emphasized that economics (economic theory) studies only the distribution, exchange and consumption of the economic wealth (food, beverages, clothing, housing, machine tools, computers, services, etc.), the production of which is possible and limited. And the wealth that exists indefinitely: no economic relations are formed in the production and distribution of solar energy, air, and the like. This current book is the second complete updated edition of the challenges of the modern global economy in the context of the coronary crisis, taking into account some of the priority directions of the country's development. Its purpose is to help students and interested readers gain a thorough knowledge of economics and show them how this knowledge can be applied pragmatically (professionally) in professional activities or in everyday life. To achieve this goal, this textbook, which consists of two parts and tests, discusses in simple and clear language issues such as: the essence of economics as a science, reasons for origin, purpose, tasks, usefulness and functions; Basic principles, problems and peculiarities of economics in different economic systems; Needs and demand, the essence of economic resources, types and limitations; Interaction, mobility, interchangeability and efficient use of economic resources. The essence and types of wealth; The essence, types and models of the economic system; The interaction of households and firms in the market of resources and products; Market mechanism and its elements - demand, supply and price; Demand and supply elasticity; Production costs and the ways to reduce them; Forms of the market - perfect and incomplete competition markets and their peculiarities; Markets for Production Factors and factor incomes; The essence of macroeconomics, causes and importance of origin; The essence and calculation of key macroeconomic indicators (gross national product, gross domestic product, net national product, national income, etc.); Macroeconomic stability and instability, unemployment, inflation and anti-inflationary policies; State regulation of the economy and economic policy; Monetary and fiscal policy; Income and standard of living; Economic Growth; The Corona Pandemic as a Defect and Effect of Globalization; National Economic Problems and New Opportunities for Development in the conditions of the Coronary Crisis; The Socio-economic problems of moral obsolescence in digital technologies; Education and creativity are the main solution way to overcome the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus; Positive and negative effects of tourism in Georgia; Formation of the middle class as a contributing factor to the development of tourism in Georgia; Corporate culture in Georgian travel companies, etc. The axiomatic truth is that economics is the union of people in constant interaction. Given that the behavior of the economy reflects the behavior of the people who make up the economy, after clarifying the essence of the economy, we move on to the analysis of the four principles of individual decision-making. Furtermore, the book describes how people make independent decisions. The key to making an individual decision is that people have to choose from alternative options, that the value of any action is measured by the value of what must be given or what must be given up to get something, that the rational, smart people make decisions based on the comparison of the marginal costs and marginal returns (benefits), and that people behave accordingly to stimuli. Afterwards, the need for human interaction is then analyzed and substantiated. If a person is isolated, he will have to take care of his own food, clothes, shoes, his own house and so on. In the case of such a closed economy and universalization of labor, firstly, its productivity will be low and, secondly, it will be able to consume only what it produces. It is clear that human productivity will be higher and more profitable as a result of labor specialization and the opportunity to trade with others. Indeed, trade allows each person to specialize, to engage in the activities that are most successful, be it agriculture, sewing or construction, and to buy more diverse goods and services from others at a relatively lower price. The key to such human interactions is that trade is mutually beneficial; That markets are usually the good means of coordination between people and that the government can improve the results of market functioning if the market reveals weakness or the results of market functioning are not fair. Moroever, it also shows how the economy works as a whole. In particular, it is argued that productivity is a key determinant of living standards, that an increase in the money supply is a major source of inflation, and that one of the main impediments to avoiding inflation is the existence of an alternative between inflation and unemployment in the short term, that the inflation decrease causes the temporary decline in unemployement and vice versa. The Understanding creatively of all above mentioned issues, we think, will help the reader to develop market economy-appropriate thinking and rational economic-commercial-financial behaviors, to be more competitive in the domestic and international labor markets, and thus to ensure both their own prosperity and the functioning of the country's economy. How he/she copes with the tasks, it is up to the individual reader to decide. At the same time, we will receive all the smart useful advices with a sense of gratitude and will take it into account in the further work. We also would like to thank the editor and reviewers of the books. Finally, there are many things changing, so it is very important to realize that the XXI century has come: 1. The century of the new economy; 2. Age of Knowledge; 3. Age of Information and economic activities are changing in term of innovations. 1. Why is the 21st century the century of the new economy? Because for this period the economic resources, especially non-productive, non-recoverable ones (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) are becoming increasingly limited. According to the World Energy Council, there are currently 43 years of gas and oil reserves left in the world (see “New Commersant 2007 # 2, p. 16). Under such conditions, sustainable growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) and maximum satisfaction of uncertain needs should be achieved not through the use of more land, labor and capital (extensification), but through more efficient use of available resources (intensification) or innovative economy. And economics, as it was said, is the science of finding the ways about the more effective usage of the limited resources. At the same time, with the sustainable growth and development of the economy, the present needs must be met in a way that does not deprive future generations of the opportunity to meet their needs; 2. Why is the 21st century the age of knowledge? Because in a modern economy, it is not land (natural resources), labor and capital that is crucial, but knowledge. Modern production, its factors and products are not time-consuming and capital-intensive, but science-intensive, knowledge-intensive. The good example of this is a Japanese enterprise (firm) where the production process is going on but people are almost invisible, also, the result of such production (Japanese product) is a miniature or a sample of how to get the maximum result at the lowest cost; 3. Why is the 21st century the age of information? Because the efficient functioning of the modern economy, the effective organization of the material and personal factors of production largely depend on the right governance decision. The right governance decision requires prompt and accurate information. Gone are the days when the main means of transport was a sailing ship, the main form of data processing was pencil and paper, and the main means of transmitting information was sending letters through a postman on horseback. By the modern transport infrastructure (highways, railways, ships, regular domestic and international flights, oil and gas pipelines, etc.), the movement of goods, services and labor resoucres has been significantly accelerated, while through the modern means of communication (mobile phone, internet, other) the information is spreading rapidly globally, which seems to have "shrunk" the world and made it a single large country. The Authors of the book: Ushangi Samadashvili, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University - Introduction, Chapters - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11,12, 15,16, 17.1,18 , Tests, Revaz Shengelia, Doctor of Economics, Professor of Georgian Technical University, Chapters_7, 8, 13. 14, 17.2, 17.4; Zhuzhuna Tsiklauri - Doctor of Economics, Professor of Georgian Technical University - Chapters 13.6, 13.7,17.2, 17.3, 18. We also thank the editor and reviewers of the book.