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Algorithmic Collusion in the Housing Market

While the development of artificial intelligence has led to efficient business strategies, such as dynamic pricing, this new technology is vulnerable to collusion and consumer harm when companies share the same software through a central platform. Gabriele Bortolotti highlights the importance of antitrust enforcement in this domain for the second article in our series, using as a case study the RealPage class action lawsuit in the Seattle housing market.

COMMENTARY

Antitrust and Competition

The Future Markets Model Explains Meta/Within: A Reply to Herb Hovenkamp

Lawrence B. Landman

In response to both Herb Hovenkamp’s February 27 article in ProMarket and, perhaps more importantly, also to Hovenkamp’s highly regarded treatise, Lawrence B. Landman, first, shows that the Future Markets Model explains the court’s decision in Meta/Within. Since Meta was not even trying to make a future product, the court correctly found that Meta would not enter the Future Market. Second, the Future Markets Model is the analytical tool which Hovenkamp says the enforcers lack when they try to protect competition to innovate.

RESEARCH

Antitrust and Competition

Creating a Modern Antitrust Welfare Standard that Integrates Post-Chicago and Neo-Brandeisian Goals

Darren Bush, Mark Glick, Gabriel A. Lozada

Darren Bush, Mark Glick, and Gabriel A. Lozada argue that the Consumer Welfare Standard is inconsistent with modern welfare economics and that a modern approach to antitrust could integrate traditional Congressional goals as advocated by the Neo-Brandesians. Such an approach could be the basis for an alliance between the post-Chicago economists and the Neo-Brandesians.

A New Capitalisn’t Episode

LATEST

Antitrust and Competition

The Impact of Algorithms on Competition and Competition Law

Antonio Capobianco

Antonio Capobianco, the deputy head of the OECD Competition Division and one of the authors of the 2023 OECD report on algorithmic competition and collusion, explains the risks that algorithms and artificial intelligence pose to competition and how regulators can approach the changing competition paradigm.

Antitrust and Competition

Rivals’ Exit Should Be Incorporated into the Guidelines for Vertical Merger Evaluation

Javier D. Donna, Pedro Pereira

An exit-inducing vertical merger might reduce welfare even if it is a welfare-enhancing vertical merger absent exit. Therefore, the possibility for rivals’ exit should be incorporated into the guidelines for vertical merger evaluation, write Javier D. Donna and Pedro Pereira in new research.

Book Excerpts

The Business of Colonialism

Philip Stern

In his new book, Empire Incorporated, Philip Stern argues that corporations drove the global expansion of the British Empire rather than provide...

Antitrust and Competition

There Is No Antitrust Exception To Rules Of Statutory Interpretation

Tim Wu

Tim Wu responds to a recent ProMarket post by Herbert Hovenkamp which argues for the dismissal of the Supreme Court’s 1962 Brown Shoe decision. Wu says that the Court’s duty is to obey and interpret the intentions of laws set by Congress, and cases cannot be dismissed because they don’t align with a particular policy perspective.

Big Tech

How Big Tech Uses Net Neutrality To Subvert Competition

Roslyn Layton

ProMarket writers

[Wall Street Journal]

READING LISTS

Health Care

Americans spend significantly more on health care than any other country. Why? Answers to this question range from hospital monopolies to perverse incentives to opaque pricing to medical licensing to pharmaceutical firms abusing IP practices to “creeping consolidation.” Why is the US health care system so broken? And what can antirust do about it? Catch-up on our coverage of antitrust and the US health care system.

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Book Excerpts

Lowering the Barriers to Entry for Economics Research in Healthcare

Filippo Lancieri

A new collection of scholarly work on the economics of the US healthcare sector is released today. The following is an adaptation...

Health Care

Rethinking How To Achieve Universal Health Care Coverage in the US

Katherine Baicker, Amitabh Chandra, Mark Shepard

Solutions to expanding heath care coverage in the U.S. are often incremental and focus on mitigating market failures. In new research, Katherine...

Antitrust and Competition

Antitrust Enforcement Is Not Enough to Address Anticompetitive Conduct in Pharmaceutical Markets. Market-Oriented Legal Reform is Needed.

Alden Abbott

Federal antitrust enforcement has been robust and effective in promoting prescription drug market competition and thereby enhancing consumer welfare. Antitrust enforcement in...

Antitrust and Competition

Competition Problems in Prescription Drug Market

Michael Kades

Although not the sole cause of high prescription drug costs, abusive practices that distort competition contribute to the problem. Too many companies...