The Hub And The Spokes

The first comprehensive economic and legal analysis of hub-and-spoke cartels, with detailed case studies. A cartel forms when competitors conspire to limit competition through coordinated actions. Most cartels are composed exclusively of firms that would otherwise be in competition, but in a hub-and-spoke cartel, those competitors (“spokes”) conspire with the assistance of an upstream supplier or a downstream buyer (“hub”). This book provides the first comprehensive economic and legal analysis of hub-and-spoke cartels, explaining their formation and how they operate to create and sustain a collusive environment. Sixteen detailed case studies, including cases brought against toy manufacturer Hasbro and the Apple ebook case, illustrate the economic framework and legal strategies discussed. The authors identify three types of hub-and-spoke cartels: when an upstream firm facilitates downstream firms to coordinate on higher prices; when a downstream intermediary facilitates upstream suppliers to coordinate on higher prices; and when a downstream firm facilitates upstream suppliers to exclude a downstream rival. They devote a chapter to each type, discussing the formation, coordination, enforcement, efficacy, and prosecution of these cartels, and consider general lessons that can be drawn from the case studies. Finally, they present strategies for prosecuting hub-and-spoke collusion. The book is written to be accessible to both economists and lawyers, and is intended for both scholars and practitioners.

Stop stressing and learn to chill with this mindfulness and meditation guidebook that can help workaholics and others let go of anxiety and achieve and maintain the healthy work/life balance they need. We all know good health and happiness depends on having proper balance between our professional and private lives. But in today’s hectic work environment, in which we must do more in less time with fewer resources, that goal can feel impossible to attain. We stay late at the office rather than being home with our families. We work into the night and on weekends to perfect that presentation or just catch up, rather than relaxing with a hobby or spending time with our friends. Under constant pressure to over-perform, work easily becomes the dominant force in our lives. Licensed psychotherapist and professor Bryan Robinson understands the demands we face. He also knows that it’s difficult to stop the cycle of over-work. But there is a solution. In #Chill, Robinson explains how ending the cycle of work addiction can be achieved by reframing priorities and cultivating mindfulness in our daily lives. He provides a month-by-month guide with meditations that help center and soothe us, allowing us to step back, close our eyes, take a long breath, and focus on the moment. Filled with wise advice, inspiring quotes, and gentle guidance, #Chill gives us the tools we need to quiet our anxiety, break our addiction to work, and bring compassion, calm, confidence, and creativity into our daily existence—and at last, have the peaceful, balanced life we all deserve.

Learn the importance of architectural and design patterns in producing and sustaining next-generation IT and business-critical applications with this guide. About This Book Use patterns to tackle communication, integration, application structure, and more Implement modern design patterns such as microservices to build resilient and highly available applications Choose between the MVP, MVC, and MVVM patterns depending on the application being built Who This Book Is For This book will empower and enrich IT architects (such as enterprise architects, software product architects, and solution and system architects), technical consultants, evangelists, and experts. What You Will Learn Understand how several architectural and design patterns work to systematically develop multitier web, mobile, embedded, and cloud applications Learn object-oriented and component-based software engineering principles and patterns Explore the frameworks corresponding to various architectural patterns Implement domain-driven, test-driven, and behavior-driven methodologies Deploy key platforms and tools effectively to enable EA design and solutioning Implement various patterns designed for the cloud paradigm In Detail Enterprise Architecture (EA) is typically an aggregate of the business, application, data, and infrastructure architectures of any forward-looking enterprise. Due to constant changes and rising complexities in the business and technology landscapes, producing sophisticated architectures is on the rise. Architectural patterns are gaining a lot of attention these days. The book is divided in three modules. You'll learn about the patterns associated with object-oriented, component-based, client-server, and cloud architectures. The second module covers Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) patterns and how they are architected using various tools and patterns. You will come across patterns for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Event-Driven Architecture (EDA), Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA), big data analytics architecture, and Microservices Architecture (MSA). The final module talks about advanced topics such as Docker containers, high performance, and reliable application architectures. The key takeaways include understanding what architectures are, why they're used, and how and where architecture, design, and integration patterns are being leveraged to build better and bigger systems. Style and Approach This book adopts a hands-on approach with real-world examples and use cases.

This volume presents state-of-the-art models, algorithms, and applications of quantitative methods in management and economics. The papers are clustered into four parts, focusing on optimization issues, applications of Operations Research in production and service management, applications of Operations Research in logistics, and interdisciplinary approaches.