Regulation

In new research, Patrice Bougette, Frédéric Marty, and Simone Vannuccini propose that competition authorities add a conditional fine to antitrust cases that is activated when behavioral remedies are no longer effective.

Financial crises routinely trigger sweeping overhauls of financial regulation, but whose interests do these reforms serve? In new research, Orkun Saka, Yuemei Ji, and Clement Minaudier find that political leaders facing term limits are much more likely to respond to financial crises by introducing reforms that benefit banks over the public or long-term financial stability. This phenomenon occurs more frequently in countries where the revolving door between politics and finance is common.

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.

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

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.

Jeremy Pilaar and Albert (Haotian) Wang present the weaknesses in current legislative reforms targeting pharmacy benefit managers. They suggest that lawmakers focus on reining in PBM income, limiting fees that PBMs can charge, and empowering state legislative efforts.  

Alberto Heimler argues that antitrust authorities should focus on whether market power allows one party to exploit relationship-specific sunk investments made by another and how that undermines potential innovation, investments, and competition. 

In new research, Tingting Song examines how FRAND principles typically used to discipline excessive or discriminatory terms in SEP licensing can be applied to data brokers in data licensing.

Artificial intelligence agents are beginning to interact in ways that create risks beyond individual misalignment with corporate and social expectations. As happened with global finance after the 2007 crisis, AI governance needs to begin focusing on how good agents can still produce bad systems.

News media circulates with warnings about speculative bubbles in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, but history shows that not all bubbles are bad for the economy, and some may even aid long-term growth. In new research, Jared Bernstein, Aneil Kovvali and Jeffery Y. Zhang distinguish between constructive and destructive bubbles and suggest how the government and financial institutions can limit the consequences of the latter.