More alarmist analysts think that doing nothing would kill the company and make Boeing a monopoly producer.

ECONOMIST: Airbus and EADS

While most other rich countries chose to make betting on horse-racing a state monopoly, Britain legalised private bookies in the 1960s.

ECONOMIST: Gambling

Economic issues are often even trickier today: it is usually easy, with the aid of modern developments in economic theory, to make a plausible case both for and against any alleged monopoly.

ECONOMIST: Millennium issue: Antitrust

Financing a monopoly business like London's Underground in this way would make a great deal of sense.

ECONOMIST: The London Underground

For all that, it is strongly backed by schools of education, which have a monopoly of teacher-training, and by teachers' unions, whose members make more money when it is artificially hard for others to get into the profession.

ECONOMIST: It's getting easier to change your mind and become a teacher

And Bill Gates--who knows the value of a monopoly better than just about anyone--spent nearly half a billion dollars to make sure that it was running Microsoft software.

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The main concession they make to the q-sceptics is to agree that, if a certain kind of intangible asset increases monopoly power in the American economy, then q, properly measured, would be lower than their estimate.

ECONOMIST: Letter of credit | The

As a youngster, I was always one for a good game of Risk or Monopoly with my uncles, and I decided early on to make my travels in Europe just another game: Project Julie.

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