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The Affordability Crisis, Antitrust, and Consumer Anxiety

Consumers are anxious about the economy, and it’s due not only to inflation but to market power that raises prices and reduces quality, variety, and innovation. Policymakers’ prescriptions for resolving the cost-of-living crisis have mostly ignored the role of antitrust policy, but waning competition is at the heart of these problems, writes Diana L. Moss.

Domestic Supply Chains in the US Are Fracturing Along Partisan Lines

In new research, Nandini Gupta and Swarnodeep Homroy show that firms in the United States are choosing politically-aligned suppliers to insure their supply chains against disruption. Aligned relationships are markedly more resilient when shocks hit, but the insurance is paid for in higher input costs and less innovation.

Product Liability Beats Antitrust in the Fight for Human Attention

In new research, Elettra Bietti compares the efficacy of the two legal avenues that have arisen to restrain social media’s ability to monopolize people’s time and attention: antitrust policy and product liability for consumer harm. Looking at the results of two recent Meta cases, she finds that product liability has proven the most capable in introducing the frictions needed to reduce social media’s addictive design.

Brazil’s Bill To Regulate Digital Market Illustrates How Markets Are Made, Not Found

The Chicago School believed that markets operate best when they are left to organize themselves, and that state regulation only disrupts this process to...

The American AI Exports Program Risks Stifling Smaller Competitors

The United States government launched the American AI Exports Program to help American firms win contracts from international customers. In a bid to enhance international competitiveness, the program risks stifling domestic competition, writes Javaid Sofi.

Antitrust Policy Can Be Captured Without Lobbying

In new research, Nicholas Short, Sophie Hill, and Jacob Brown examine "ideological capture": regulatory capture that works not through lobbying but through experts defining what goals and values regulators may consider. Surveying the public alongside antitrust lawyers, they find the consumer welfare standard marginalizes important public concerns, like the risk of increased layoffs or more lobbying power.

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