antitrust and competition

Anthony T. LoSasso, Ge Bai, and Lawton Robert Burns argue that critics of private equity’s involvement in healthcare ignore that it is often the only financial lifeline available to distressed healthcare providers and can introduce an improvement in outcomes, including quality of care.

Theodosia Stavroulaki reviews how the involvement of private equity in American healthcare leads to, among other negative outcomes, burnout and stress among healthcare workers, particularly physicians. She writes that the consequences could cripple America’s healthcare system.

Recent government wins against Big Tech demonstrate the prudence of proactively stopping consolidation in the emerging AI startup ecosystem to prevent harm to innovation and consumers. OpenAI’s recent acquisition of Windsurf raises these competition concerns. The antitrust agencies should block it.

Robert I. Field argues that private equity’s impact on price competition among nursing homes is limited because prices are mostly determined by Medicaid. However, private equity does impact quality and labor outcomes, which deserve greater government scrutiny.

Brent Fulton discusses private equity’s investments in hospitals and assesses the risks it presents to key stakeholders: private equity investors, debt investors, patients, and the government. He argues financial transparency regulation is needed so fraudulent transfer and bankruptcy laws can be enforced to reduce uncompensated risk being borne by patients and the government (ultimately taxpayers).

Melissa Newham reviews how investors can alter the incentives and behavior of pharmaceutical companies to reduce competition and consumer welfare through common ownership and “rollup” deals.

Over the last year, the United States government has demonstrated increased concern about private equity’s involvement in health care. Barak Richman and Richard Scheffler...

In the wake of Democrats’ losses in 2024, progressives should focus on how antitrust can support a lower cost of living and increase consumer access to essential goods and services, writes Diana Moss.

Marios Constantine Iacovides discusses his and Konstantinos Stylianou’s empirical investigations into how the goals of competition policy have evolved over time. They find that a multitude of goals have always been present in judicial and regulatory decisions, but the emphasis on certain goals has vacillated in response to the concerns of the time. Contemporary concerns about the health of democracy suggest a revival of ordoliberalism and protection of the competitive process.

Regulators worldwide are debating how to rein in Big Tech's dominance over app distribution. Tiffany Tsai and Chuyue Tian explore how Apple’s clash with China’s WeChat complicates standard assumptions about platform competition and what it might mean for the next wave of antitrust enforcement.