The book is in three parts with a section of keywords. Part I covers individual choice, Part II examines interactive choice . The final part covers interactive choice .

This book presents the first ever comprehensive picture of the concentration, integration, multinationality, and diversification of industry and firms, based on a newly constructed micro-level database. At the theoretical level, it develops a new way of integrating the insights of international trade, industrial organization, international business, and corporate strategy: by understanding the reasons for the industrial structure we observe, it argues, much can be learnt about the underlying competitive processes that generated this structure in the context of current European integration....

Competition between firms is usually the most effective way of delivering economic efficiency and what consumers want. However, there is a balance to be struck. Firms must not be over-regulated and so hampered in their development of innovative products and new strategies to compete for customers. Nor must they be completely free to satisfy a natural preference for monopoly, which would give them higher profits and a quieter life. The economic role of competition policy (control of anticompetitive agreements, mergers and abusive practices) is to maintain this balance, and an effective policy...