Regulation

In two new research papers, Ryan Brutger and Amy Pond explore how different messaging about the effects of  antitrust enforcement sway American public opinion toward and away from stronger enforcement.

In recent research, Brian Broughman, Matthew Wansley, and Samuel Weinstein examine how startups are changing their traditional exit strategies in response to more stringent antitrust enforcement. Many startups are adopting alternative strategies to stay private longer, ultimately raising new questions for competition policy. 

In a new NBER working paper, Charles Hodgson and Shilong Sun show that vertical integration is usually good for consumers, except when firms have both the ability and the incentive to foreclose rivals.  They use the heavily integrated Chinese Film Industry to show that targeting enforcement to the markets where harm is predictable makes it possible to effectively regulate harmful cases and protect consumers.

In new research, Seda Basihos investigates the relationship between a decline in market competition and global democratic backsliding. She finds that market concentration leads to increasing political power for giant firms—a trend that ultimately erodes democracy levels.

In new research, Niuniu Zhang discusses how regulators can add “noise” to market data to preclude tacit collusion through algorithmic pricing software without hampering legitimate market practices.

In new research, Vikas Agarwal, Juan-Pedro Gómez, Kasra Hosseini, and Manish Jha explore how companies reward executives for meeting sustainability targets. They evaluate how ESG metrics to determine executive pay create tradeoffs with traditional financial incentives, and what that means for the future of ESG goals.

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.

Drawing on her working paper, Giovanna Massarotto discusses three algorithmic approaches to how Google can fairly and efficiently share its data with rivals per the requirements of a court’s mandated remedy for illegally monopolizing the online search market.

States are beginning to impose idiosyncratic rules on artificial intelligence chatbots and other offerings in response to harms to consumers. Rather than create a...

Elizabeth Pollman reviews barriers for holding corporations and their fiduciaries accountable under corporate and securities law.