big tech
Economists Agree That Stronger Legal Liability for Online Platforms Would Reduce Disinformation
Will increasing the liability of internet platforms mitigate disinformation? Economists weighed in on the effects of limiting or repealing protections for Big Tech through a recent survey from the Forum for the Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets—previously the Initiative on Global Markets—at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
How To Handle Big Tech Acquisitions Under Uncertainty
The Federal Trade Commission recently failed to stop Meta’s acquisition of virtual reality company Within, while the Department of Justice is now...
Understanding the DOJ’s Decision To Seek a Jury Trial in the Google Ad Tech Case
The Department of Justice recently sued Google for conduct relating to its ad tech services, accusing the search giant of unlawful monopolization....
Antitrust Needs Better Models for Estimating Social Welfare in the Digital Age
In a forthcoming article, Seth Benzell and Felix Chang explore how antitrust regulators can use insights from a new quantitative model of...
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...
User Hesitancy Increases Online Platforms’ Incumbency Advantage
“Incumbency advantage” among Big Tech platforms recognizes that network effects prevent users from leaving established platforms for emerging competitors. Gary Biglaiser, Jacques...
Event Notes: “China’s Political Economy” in Review
The Stigler Center's "China Political Economy" webinar series returns Thursday, February 9. Here's a reminder of what we covered in our first...
Too Many Economists Are Using a Flawed Theory To Defend Dominant Platforms’ Self-Preferencing Practices
Congress is currently considering two major bills that would regulate “self-preferencing” and related conduct by dominant digital platforms. Criticism of these bills...
Why Streaming Doesn’t Pay
An excerpt from a new book, Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win...
LATEST NEWS
Antitrust and Competition
Revising Guideline 6 With Evidence To Establish a Structural Inference for Input Foreclosure
Vertical merger law lacks the structural presumption of horizontal merger law, which shifts the burden from the government to the merging parties to provide evidence that a merger will not produce anticompetitive effects when it is known that the merger will substantially increase market concentration. To improve Guideline 6 of the draft Merger Guidelines concerning vertical foreclosure, Steven Salop develops a three-factor criteria with which the government antitrust agencies can show an analogous structural “inference” that shifts the burden of evidence to the merging parties.
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.
