The markets for network-based products and services pose particular problems with regard to competition. The transition from monopolistic to competitive structures and the issues of infrastructure sharing, dominant players and network externalities have all been subject to intensive debates....

The rapid globalisation of the information economy has unleashed new pressures for increasing the tradabity of information services. There exists a large gap, however, between the rhetoric of the advocates of free trade in services and their protectionist practices.

Economists, management researchers and sociologists have all examined the impact of the spread of information and communication technologies. There has until now, however, been relatively little interconnectivity and cross-fertilisation of their findings. The following paper attempts to derive a...