data
The Antitrust Problem of Zero-Rating
Dominant web services will often incentivize mobile phone carriers to provide their customers access to their services at zero cost to the customer’s data plan, also known as zero-rating. In new research, Bruno Renzetti argues that this behavior can be a form of exclusionary conduct designed to solidify the monopolies of dominant online platforms and services that ultimately harms consumers even if it appears to lower their data costs at first glance.
Data is Abundant But is it Accessible to Researchers?
Despite the wide availability of data, ensuring independent access to data sources has never been more crucial. How can researchers engage in...
The Uber Files Reveal The Risk of Private Interests Controlling Our Data
Researchers discovered that the introduction of Uber had negative impacts on transportation, findings that required cooperation with public authorities when Uber refused...
New Data Shows the Rise of Corporate Concentration in the US in the Past 100 Years
New research observing 100 years of concentration in economic activities and investment in research and development shows that the dominance of large...
Why Competition Alone Won’t Bring About a More Inclusive Digital Economy
The current reforms being debated in the US and Europe to tackle the challenges posed by tech giants tend to see more...
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...
Why Privacy Experts Need a Place at the Antitrust Table
Antitrust enforcers have tended to stay narrowly “in their lane,” failing to engage with how data is collected and used by digital...
No More “Mystery Meat”: Why We Need Better Corporate Governance Data
Three decades of finance, economics, and legal studies in corporate governance have been built substantially on data sets with nearly unknown provenance....
Big Tech’s Fight Over Privacy: Could Facebook Win an Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple?
Do the new iOS 14 privacy features violate antitrust laws? If Facebook brings an antitrust suit against Apple, as it is reportedly...
Giving Away Our Data for Free is a Market Failure
By convincing users to give away their data for free, digital platforms have caused a market failure. This failure benefits them and...
LATEST NEWS
Income Inequality
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.
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
Research
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.
Antitrust and Competition
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.
