The Digital Economy

Destabilizing Digital “Bank Walks”

Bank regulators have always assumed that bank deposits are ‘sticky,’ but the advent of digital banking is changing that. New research focuses...

Data, Context and Competition Policy

Data has a tendency to be misunderstood. It is often compared to a raw material like oil, waste, or capital. Elettra Bietti...

Capitalisn’t: What’s in the Twitter Files and What Does It Mean?

In the March 30 episode of Capitalisn’t, Bethany McLean and Luigi Zingales discuss the Twitter Files, why so much of the mainstream...

Self-Preferencing Theories Need To Account for Exploitative Abuse

Patrice Bougette, Oliver Budzinski, and Frédéric Marty argue in their research that antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic must take...

Startup Acquisitions Have Undecided Effects on Innovation and Economic Growth

Startups are a major driver of innovation, but many startups are acquired by large incumbents. Do these acquisitions stifle innovation or promote...

Can Twitter Be a Force for Good? Social Media Helps Curb Corporate Misconduct

Collective shaming on social media is crucial in reducing corporate misbehavior — and society would be significantly worse off without watchdog platforms.

The DOJ’s AdTech Suit Against Google Is Anything but Unconventional

The U.S. Department of Justice and eight states recently sued Google, claiming it runs its digital ad business to unfairly advantage its...

Why “The Jury’s Out” on the Government’s Case Against Google’s Ad Tech Monopoly

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice and eight states sued Google, claiming it runs its digital ad business to unfairly advantage...

An Excessive Evidentiary Burden Sunk the FTC’s Case Against the Meta/Within Merger

In early February, a district court judge rejected the FTC’s preliminary injunction suit to block Meta’s purchase of Within, a developer of...

How the AT&T Case Can Inform Big Tech Breakups

Breaking up companies that antitrust regulators consider too dominant can be costly and might negatively impact innovation and consumer welfare. As economists...

Latest news

Creation over Time in Copyright and Patent

On May 18, the United States Supreme Court decided two intellectual property cases with two seemingly different results. A closer look, however, reveals a complimentary concern with the monopolistic power of first movers and how the legal system should enable innovation from second movers over time, writes Randy Picker.

ESG Standards’ Good, Bad and Ugly

The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State hosted a virtual event discussing the standards, metrics and disclosures of investments focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. The following is a transcript of the event.

Reregulate.

Lee Hepner and William J. McGee respond to Clifford Winston’s ProMarket piece asserting that further deregulation of the airline industry would resolve problems in the industry. Instead, the authors claim a return to regulation would produce better results for travelers.

A World With Far Fewer Mergers

Brooke Fox and Walter Frick analyze research and ideas presented at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference that question the value of mergers.

The Banking Risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies

The implementation of central bank digital currencies as the primary medium of exchange would exacerbate the flaws of our current fiat system which encourage banks to overextend credit and create liabilities that they cannot redeem. This will worsen the already recurring cycles of financial crises, writes Vibhu Vikramaditya.

The Whig History of the Merger Guidelines

A pervasive "Whig" view of United States antitrust history among scholars and practitioners celebrates the Merger Guidelines' implementation of increasingly sophisticated economic methods since their...

Algorithmic Collusion in the Housing Market

While the development of artificial intelligence has led to efficient business strategies, such as dynamic pricing, this new technology is vulnerable to collusion and consumer harm when companies share the same software through a central platform. Gabriele Bortolotti highlights the importance of antitrust enforcement in this domain for the second article in our series, using as a case study the RealPage class action lawsuit in the Seattle housing market.