Big data

How Big Data Fuels Big Tech’s Anticompetitive Conduct and Gatekeeping Power

Achieving a truly open internet is only possible through robust online competition free from the control of today’s digital gatekeepers like Facebook...

The Real Price of Health Data: Americans Don’t Want to Share Their Records for Free

The 2019 Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index survey shows that 93 percent of participants don’t want to share their health data with digital...

The Unprecedented Power of Digital Platforms to Control Opinions and Votes

In Chapter 6 of our Digital Platforms and Concentration conference ebook, a research psychologist who, with an associate, discovered the search engine manipulation effect (SEME)...

Solutions to the Threats of Digital Monopolies

In Chapter 5 of the forthcoming Stigler Center ebook Digital Platforms and Concentration, published in anticipation of the eponymous conference at Chicago Booth on...

eDistortions: How Data-opolies Are Dissipating the Internet's Potential

In this chapter from the forthcoming Stigler Center ebook Digital Platforms and Concentration, published in anticipation of the eponymous conference at Chicago Booth on...

“Markets Today Are Radically Different Than What We Believe – We Have the Façade of Competition"

A Stigler Center panel explores the implications of big data for competition policy and for consumer welfare. The business model at the heart of the digital...

LATEST NEWS

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition

Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.