type here...
ProMarket writers

Transcript: John Ioannidis Keynote

The following is a transcript of John Ioannidis's keynote address at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference—Economic Concentration and the Marketplace of Ideas.

COMMENTARY

OpenAI Abandons Move to For-Profit Status After Backlash. Now What?

Andy Shi
After public backlash, OpenAI has abandoned plans to restructure to remove control by its nonprofit entity. ProMarket reviews the history of OpenAI’s internal tensions to pursue profits over its founding purpose, artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, and what questions remain after the firm’s retreat.

RESEARCH

The Historically Diverse Goals of European Competition Recommend a New Emphasis on Democracy

Marios Iacovides
Marios Constantine Iacovides discusses his and Konstantinos Stylianou’s empirical investigations into how the goals of competition policy have evolved over time. They find that a multitude of goals have always been present in judicial and regulatory decisions, but the emphasis on certain goals has vacillated in response to the concerns of the time. Contemporary concerns about the health of democracy suggest a revival of ordoliberalism and protection of the competitive process.
spot_img
spot_img

A New Capitalisn’t Episode

Subscribe to promarket newsletter

Join our email newsletter

LATEST

Antitrust and Competition

Transcript: Fireside Chat With Roger Alford and Doha Mekki

ProMarket writers
The following is a transcript of Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roger Alford and former Principle Deputy Assistant Attorney Doha Mekki in conversation with Bloomberg reporter Josh Sisco.
Antitrust and Competition

Google Ad Tech Delivered an Important Victory for the Government Using a Flawed Tying Rule

Herbert Hovenkamp
Herbert Hovenkamp writes that the court presiding over the Google Ad Tech case gave the government an important win. However, by relying on the per se tying rule instead of rule of reason, the court perpetuated a flawed court precedent that can preclude serious market analysis for competitive harms.
Antitrust and Competition

Are Big Tech’s Quasi-Mergers With AI Startups Anticompetitive?

Alexandros Kazimirov
The Federal Trade Commission’s case against Meta for monopolizing personal social media through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp serves as a warning of allowing Big Tech companies to acquire nascent competitors in the artificial intelligence market through quasi-mergers that dodge government scrutiny. Based on new research, Alexandros Kazimirov argues that antitrust agencies can look at a combination of circumstantial evidence, including market product proximity, price premiums and product discontinuation, to help adjust their approach to keep AI markets contestable, rather than trying to restore contestability ten years from now.
Antitrust and Competition

How Does Venture Capital Shape Biotech Innovation?

Xuelin Li, Sijie Wang, Jiajie Xu and Xiang Zheng
In new research, Xuelin Li, Sijie Wang, Jiajie Xu, and Xiang Zheng find that the involvement of specialized venture capital firms influences a biotech startup’s drug portfolio by focusing research and development on fewer products.
Culture & Society

Transcript: Tom Ginsburg Keynote

ProMarket writers
The following is a transcript of Tom Ginsburg's keynote address at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference—Economic Concentration and the Marketplace of Ideas.
SHOW MORE

what we're reading

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.

Read the list
Discover all reading lists
Antitrust and Competition

Now Is the Time To Correct Residency Match and (Especially) Other Competition Issues in the Physician Market

Barak Richman
Barak Richman writes that the recently announced investigation of the House Judiciary subcommittee for antitrust into the residency match antitrust exemption presents an opportunity...
Antitrust and Competition

Can the FTC’s PBM Complaint Create a Competitive Pharmaceutical Marketplace?

Fiona Scott Morton
Fiona Scott Morton reviews the merits of the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for suppressing competition in pharmaceutical markets. Although the complaint’s alleged harms are narrow, it is a welcome start that promises to shed light on the PBM’s expansive anticompetitive practices and ultimately lower drug prices for Americans.
Commentary

How Has the Affordable Care Act Fared After Ten Years?

David Ennis
David Ennis evaluates how well the Affordable Care Act has met its expectations and where it has fallen short ten years after its implementation.
Book Excerpts

Food for Thought

Marion Nestle
An excerpt from the second edition of Marion Nestle's book, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, out now.

George J. Stigler, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982 “for his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets, and causes and effects of public regulation.” His research upended the idea that government regulation was effective at correcting private-market failures. Stigler introduced the idea of regulatory capture, in which regulators could be dominated by special interests. These regulators would work for the benefit of large, monied organizations rather than the public good. Catch up on ProMarket's coverage of his legacy.

Read the list
Discover all reading lists
Commentary

Can OpenAI Abandon Its Non-Profit “Purpose”?

Rose Chan Loui
Rose Chan Loui explains the current controversy surrounding OpenAI’s decision to abandon its nonprofit status. To learn more about OpenAI’s proposed restructuring, what it means for the race to develop artificial general intelligence, and how it highlights the tricky legal concept of a nonprofit’s “purpose,” listen to Chan Loui’s recent appearance on Capitalisn’t.
Big Tech

Why Google’s Dominance in Search Persists – And How to Fix It

Hunt Allcott, Ben Bewick, Juan Camilo Castillo, Matthew Gentzkow, Leon Musolff and Tobias Salz
A new field experiment sheds light on why Google continues to dominate the search engine market despite regulatory interventions and the availability of alternatives. The authors find that while Google offers higher quality, consumer overestimation of this advantage—along with inattention and default effects—helps entrench its market power and limits the effectiveness of proposed antitrust remedies.
Antitrust and Competition

Transcript: FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Keynote Part II

ProMarket writers
The following is the second part to the transcript of Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson’s keynote at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and...
Event Notes

Academics Decry Federal Overreach Yet See Bias in Universities

ProMarket writers
A new ProMarket survey of scholars reveals that while most view federal funding cuts under the Trump administration as a major threat to academic freedom, nearly half also see ideological bias within universities as a serious issue. The survey also found that many disagree with Columbia’s approach of capitulation to the Trump administration’s demands, and would prefer to see universities defend themselves in court or through collective action.

Transcript: FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Keynote

ProMarket writers
The following is a transcript of Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson's Keynote Address at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference. A transcript of Ferguson's accompanying interview with University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner, and the subsequent audience Q&A, will be published next week.

The Benefits of Platform Monopoly

Andrey Mir
Andrey Mir writes that antitrust scholarship and enforcement seeking to break up platform monopolies overlook the benefits that these platforms provide because they are monopolies. He says the community must keep this in mind as it seeks to alleviate harms that any monopoly incurs to the economy.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson on Social Media and Censorship

ProMarket writers
Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson delivered a keynote address at the Stigler Center's 2025 Antitrust and Competition Conference, which focused on how economic concentration impacts the marketplace of ideas.

COLUMNS

spot_imgspot_img

The publication of the Stigler Center at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.