ECONOMIC MECHANISMS OF STATE REGULATION OF DIGITAL OLIGOPOLIES IN EU COUNTRIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35774/jee2026.01.090Keywords:
antitrust regulation, clustering, Digital Markets Act, digital oligopoly, ex-post and ex-ante approaches, gatekeepers, lobbying, market power.Abstract
This article examines the nature and specificity of digital oligopolies in the European Union, their economic characteristics, and the sources of their market power. It outlines the evolution of EU regulatory policy – from ex-post (retrospec tive) to ex-ante (preventive) approaches – with particular attention to the implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The study analyses the lobbying expenditures of EU digital platforms, the degree of market concentration in the EU digital ecosystem, and the resulting need for differentiated state regulation of platform services within the Union. The article proposes a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) scale suitable for modelling user behaviour, assessing economies of scale, and evaluating platform-to-platform interactions, as well as an analytical system of criteria for clustering digital platforms by market structure type, integrating both economic and structural parameters.
JEL: L13, L40, L86, D72, K21, H11.
References
Akman, P. (2022). Regulating competition in digital platform markets: A critical assessment of the framework and approach of the EU Digital Markets Act. European Law Review, 47(1), 85–114. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3978625
Askar, S. S. (2020). A dynamic duopoly model: When a firm shares the market with certain profit. Mathematics, 8(10), Article 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/math8101826
Cabral, L., Haucap, J., Parker, G., Petropoulos, G., Valletti, T., & Van Alstyne, M. (2021). The EU Digital Markets Act: A report from a panel of economic experts. Publications Office. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/139337
Carugati, C. (2023). Compliance principles for the Digital Markets Act (Policy Brief No. 21/2023). Bruegel. https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/complianceprinciples-digital-markets-act
Cennamo, C., Kretschmer, T., Constantinides, P., Alaimo, C., & Santaló, J. (2023, January). Digital platforms regulation: An innovation-centric view of the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Journal of European Competition Law & Practice,14(1), 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeclap/lpac043
Cini, M., & Czulno, P. (2022). Digital Single Market and the EU competition regime: An explanation of policy change. Journal of European Integration, 44(1), 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2021.2011260
Crémer, J., Crawford, G. S., Dinielli, D., Fletcher, A., Heidhues, P., Schnitzer, M., & Scott Morton, F. M. (2023). Fairness and contestability in the Digital Markets Act. Yale Journal on Regulation, 40(3), 973–1012. https://www.yalejreg.com/print/fairness-and-contestability-in-the-digital-markets-act/
De Petris, A., Gasparotti, A., Harta, L., Kullas, M., & Warhem, V. (2020). The Digital Markets Act: The Commission’s plan to revamp competition law for digital markets. Centres for European Policy Network. https://www.cep.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/cep.eu/Studien/cepInput_Digital_Markets_Act/cepInput_Digital_Markets_Act_24112020_final.pdf
Decarolis, F., & Li, M. (2023, September). Regulating online search in the EU: From the Android case to the digital markets act and digital services act. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 90, Article 102983. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2023.102983
Eckardt, M. (2025). EU digital law and the digital platform economy—an inquiry into the co-evolution of law and technology. Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, 6, 183–213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43253-024-00135-z
Escrihuela-Villar, M., & Guillén, J. (2025). On Cournot and Bertrand competition in collusive mixed oligopolies. Journal of Economics, 144, 231–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00712-024-00889-4
European Commission. (2020). Digital Services Act package – ex ante regulatory instrument of very large online platforms acting as gatekeepers: Inception impact assessment – ARES(2020)2877647. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12418-Ex-ante-regulatoryinstrument-of-very-large-online-platforms-acting-as-gatekeepers_en
European Commission. (n.d.). Digital Markets Act (DMA) Legislation. https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/legislation_en
European Commission. (2023, September 6). Digital Markets Act: Commission designates six gatekeepers [Press release]. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328
European Parliament & Council of the European Union. (2016). Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation). Official Journal of the European Union, L119, 1-88. http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj
European Parliament & Council of the European Union. (2022). Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2022 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector and amending Directives (EU) 2019/1937 and (EU) 2020/1828 (Digital Markets Act) (Text with EEA relevance). Official Journal of the European Union, L265, 1-66. http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj
Fletcher, A., & Vasas, Z. (2024). Implications of behavioural economics for the pro-competitive regulation of digital platforms. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 40(4), 808–817. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grae044
Fletcher, A., Crémer, J., Heidhues, P., Kimmelman, G., Monti, G., Podszun, R., Schnitzer, M., Scott Morton, F., & de Streel, A. (2024). The effective use of economics in the EU Digital Markets Act. Journal of Competition Law & Economics, 20(1–2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/joclec/nhad018
Kenney, M., & Zysman, J. (2020). The platform economy: Restructuring the space of capitalist accumulation. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 13(1), 55–76. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsaa001
Kittaka, Y., Sato, S., & Zennyo, Y. (2023, June). Self-preferencing by platforms: A literature review. Japan and the World Economy, 66, Article 101191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japwor.2023.101191
Lundqvist, B. (2019). Regulating competition in the digital economy. In B. Lundqvist & M. S. Gal (Eds.), Competition law for the digital economy (pp. 2–28). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788971836.00009
Lyzun, M., Vitálišová, K., & Borseková, K. (2024). Transformation of trade flows between the EU and Ukraine in the conditions of increasing security risks. Journal of European Economy, 23(2), 289–305. https://doi.org/10.35774/jee2024.02.289
Maher, I. (2024, July). Regulatory design in the EU Digital Markets Act: No solo run for the European Commission. Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, 12(2), 273–279. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaenfo/jnae029
Maksymova, I., Savelyev, Y., Zvarych, I., Kurylyak, V., Lyzun, M., Sachenko, S., & Lishchynskyy, I. (2023). Global differentiation of climate-digital projects in terms of low-carbon economy. In 2023 IEEE 12th International Conference on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications (IDAACS) (pp. 859–864). Dortmund, IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IDAACS58523.2023.10348646.
Murphy, T. (2007). Globalization, legal pluralism, and the new constitutionalism. Nordic Journal of Human Rights, 25, 73–79. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2147319
OECD. (2006, March 6). Barriers to entry (Series Roundtables on Competition Policy No. 58 – DAF/COMP(2005)42). https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2006/03/barriers-to-entry_2ca9e70b/8bb30107-en.pdf
OECD. (2022). The evolving concept of market power in the digital economy [OECD Competition Policy Roundtable Background Note]. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2022/05/the-evolving-concept-of-marketpower-in-the-digital-economy_c384e80f/2cfcb4a8-en.pdf
Ozili, P. (2025). Digital markets: Formative components, regulation, challenges and insights from the European Union Digital Markets Act. Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance, 27(6), 687–702. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPRG-10-2024-0244
Parker, G. G., Van Alstyne, M. W., & Choudary, S. P. (2016). Platform revolution: How networked markets are transforming the economy and how to make them work for you. W. W. Norton.
Pliatsidis, A. C. (2024). Analyzing concentration in the Greek public procurement market: A network theory approach. Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, 51, 431–480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-023-00291-z
Prado, T. S. (2021, June 21-23). Assessing the market power of digital platforms [Conference paper]. 23rd Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS): "Digital societies and industrial transformations: Policies, markets, and technologies in a post-Covid world", Gothenburg, Sweden. https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/238048
Sauvagerd, M., Mayer, M., & Hartmann, M. (2024). Digital platforms in the agricultural sector: Dynamics of oligopolistic platformisation. Big Data & Society, 11(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241306365
Spiegel, Y. (2021). The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and the distribution of social surplus. The Journal of Industrial Economics, 69(3), 561–594. https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12253
statcounter. (n.d.). Social media stats Europe: January 2023-October 2025. Retrieved November 29, 2025, from https://gs.statcounter.com/social-mediastats/all/europe/#monthly-202301-202510
Statista. (2024). Lobbying expenses in the European Union (EU) from 2012 to 2023 [Data set]. Retrieved November 29, 2025, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1321186/lobbying-expenses
Tirole, J. (2017). Economics for the common good (S. Rendall, Trans.). Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc77hng
Vezzoso, S. (2024). ‘Super-apps’ and the Digital Markets Act. Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, 12(2), 331–337. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaenfo/jnae023
Zabokrytskyy, I. (2020). Transnational civil society influence on anti-corruption courts: Ukraine’s experience. Global Jurist, 20(1), Article 20190010. https://doi.org/10.1515/gj-2019-0010
Żądło, A. (2023). Protecting the rights of sellers on multilateral platforms under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) regime – selected issues. Internetowy Kwartalnik Antymonopolowy i Regulacyjny, 12(3), 108–120. https://doi.org/10.7172/2299-5749.IKAR.3.12.8
Received: December 3, 2025.
Reviewed: February 25, 2026.
Accepted: March 11, 2026.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
