antitrust and competition
Do Antitrust Enforcers Know They Induce Shrinkflation?
The United States has recently experienced shrinkflation. Many companies have downsized their products while keeping prices unchanged or even raising prices. Barak Orbach argues that misguided beliefs that failed antitrust policies enabled the decay of business morality have compromised the understanding of shrinkflation. The phenomenon typically arises when supply shocks or other factors inflate production costs in the economy and competitive pressures limit the ability of businesses to raise prices to pass on cost increases.
What Signal are the Draft Merger Guidelines Sending to Enforcers Elsewhere?
Cristina Caffarra discusses the animating principles and profound changes brought about by the new draft Merger Guidelines, and argues they will resonate with policy makers and enforcers in other jurisdictions.
Zephyr Teachout: The Proposed Merger Guidelines Represent a Reassertion of Law over Ideology Â
Zephyr Teachout provides her round-one comments on the draft Merger Guidelines.
When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything
The following is a chapter excerpt from The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything, written by John Coates and published today by Columbia Global Reports.
Eleanor Fox: A Slice of Forgotten History and Its Light on the Future – Changing the Lens on Antitrust
Eleanor Fox provides her round-one comments on the draft Merger Guidelines.
To read more from the ProMarket Merger Guidelines Symposium, please see here.
Why Does the FTC Continue To Pursue Losing Cases?
The Federal Trade Commission has recently lost a series of cases seeking to prevent Big Tech mergers and acquisitions. Jay Ezrielev offers several possible explanations for why the FTC continues to pursue these bad cases and suggests how the agency can refocus its energies to better serve its mission to protect competition going forward.
Cory S. Capps and Leemore Dafny: A Conversation on the Draft Merger Guidelines
Cory S. Capps and Leemore Dafny provide their round-one comments on the draft Merger Guidelines.
Carl Shapiro: Why Dropping Market Power from the Merger Guidelines Matters
Carl Shapiro provides his round-one comments on the draft Merger Guidelines.
The Problem with Political Antitrust
In new research, Nolan McCarty and Sepehr Shahshahani find that, contrary to the concerns of Neo-Brandeisians, Market et power does not correlate with political power via outsized lobbying.
Dennis Carlton: Have the Draft Guidelines Demoted Economics?
Dennis Carlton provides his round-one comments on the draft Merger Guidelines.
LATEST NEWS
Antitrust and Competition
How US Antitrust Enforcement Against Xerox Promoted Innovation by Japanese Competitors
Xerox invented modern copier technology and was so successful that its brand name became a verb. In 1972, U.S. antitrust authorities charged Xerox with monopolization and eventually ordered the licensing of all its copier-related patents. As new research by Robin Mamrak shows, this antitrust intervention promoted subsequent innovation in the copier industry, but only among Japanese competitors. Nevertheless, their innovations benefited U.S. consumers.
Antitrust and Competition
Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation
The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.
Economic History
How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism
In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.
Antitrust and Competition
The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect
In a new paper, Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Anna Toldrà -Simats study how large institutional investors impact firm innovation. The authors find that large institutional investors encourage internal research and development but discourage firm acquisitions that would add patents and knowledge to their firms’ portfolios, hampering overall innovation.
Antitrust and Competition
The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses
Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.
