Competition and antitrust policies have been based on a scholarly tradition
focusing on static models and static analyses of industrial organization.
However, recent developments in the industrial organization literature have
provided significant advances moving beyond the traditional static models
and the pre-occupation with price competition. In particular, the field has
now developed to consider the organization of industries in a dynamic cont
ext. These new approaches are dynamic in the sense that performance is rela
ted to variations in the products available to consumers, as well as variat
ions in firm competencies, ranking, growth, entry and exit. The development
of the industrial organization literature also incorporates models of indu
stry and market evolution. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framew
ork linking what is known in the industrial organization literature on the
dynamics and evolution of markets to one of the major policy instruments -
competition policy. This framework provides a basis for understanding the c
ontributions of the contents of the Special Issue devoted to Competition Po
licy in Dynamic Markets. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
.