News

Hannah Pittock uses weight-loss company Novo Nordisk’s offer to acquire Metsera to create a three-prong framework by which the antitrust agencies can identify when an invitation to exclude a rival from a market constitutes illegal exclusionary conduct under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

ProMarket Managing Editor Andy Shi reviews the controversy behind ExxonMobil’s new voting program and how it falls into the broader debates over recent developments to shareholder democracy and corporate governance.

Nikolaos Chatzarakis reviews some of the key economic platforms of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. He argues that Mamdani’s platform is ambitious but not unrealistic, and that criticisms of it often rely on simplistic models and theory. Still, there remain areas for improvement.

Roslyn Layton examines the recent Amazon Web Services outage and compares it with last year’s CrowdStrike outage to illustrate differences in scope, responsibility, and systemic impact. She argues that cloud providers should contribute to the Universal Service Fund, ensuring financial contribution to resilience and critical infrastructure for essential services.

Steve Salop explores the anticompetitive innovation behind weight-loss giant Novo Nordisk’s offer to acquire Metsera. Novo’s proposed contract presents a new tactic by which firms with market power can preclude rival mergers that will lead to procompetitive entry.

Richard Messick summarizes the output of last April’s Global Capitalism, Trust, and Accountability Conference, co-sponsored by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Participants explored the mechanisms of international corruption and how citizens, states, and the international community can address them.

The Google Search monopoly case focused on how Google’s agreements with Apple to set Google Search as the exclusive default search engine on Apple’s mobile devices allowed Google to solidify its monopoly in internet search. However, a less-explored dimension of these agreements is how they likewise fortified Apple’s monopoly power in the smartphone market, writes Steven C. Salop.

The Stigler Center is seeking pre-tenure candidates for its Affiliate Fellows program. Applications are due January 23.

Beatriz Kira argues that Brazil’s proposed digital competition bill shows how the Global South can strengthen regulation of Big Tech platforms without forfeiting competitiveness. Brazil’s efforts build on global models yet chart their own course and belie the false dichotomy between encouraging national business development and protecting competition and its benefits.

Laura Phillips-Sawyer writes that history shows that antitrust and industrial policy have often served as complements to one another. Industrial policy has succeeded when it has targeted specific industries to invest in their ability to compete, rather than protect them from competition.