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Family Firms

Family Ties and the Boundaries of the Firm in Antitrust Enforcement

In new research, Mariana Pargendler, Maria Luiza Mesquita, and Lucas Víspico study how antitrust authorities in the Global South have used family ties to define business enterprises and analyze mergers and acquisitions for possibly anticompetitive behavior.
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Family Ties as Corporate Power

Pablo Balán explains that family ties provide firms with an edge in collective action that enables them to be politically active through campaign donations, to engage in financial rent-seeking by obtaining subsidized state credit, and to bypass regulation seeking to curtail the influence of business by substituting individual contributions for corporate contributions. Scholars and advocates can benefit from a deeper understanding of organizational constraints to programmatic reform.
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LATEST NEWS

Antitrust and Competition

Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation

John Kwoka
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.
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Economic History

How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism

Cyril Hédoin, Alexandre Chirat
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.
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Antitrust and Competition

The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect

Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, Anna Toldrà-Simats
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.
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Antitrust and Competition

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

Joshua Gray, Cristian Santesteban
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.
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Commentary

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

David Ennis
Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.
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ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.

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