productivity

The Cost of America’s Oligopoly Problem

An innovative new study finds substantial, increasing deadweight losses resulting from oligopolistic behavior and points to the important role that startup acquisitions—particularly by large...

The “Biggest Puzzle in Economics”: Why the “Superstar Economy” Lacks Any Actual Superstars

A new study finds that the contribution of superstar firms to US productivity growth has decreased by more than 40 percent over the past...

Antitrust in a Changing Economy and Changing Economics

Jason Furman, former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers: We will likely need to update our competition policies to promote competition if we...

How a Marshall Plan Program Boosted the Performance of Italian Firms for Decades

During the 1950s, as part of the Marshall Plan, the US subsidized loans to help European firms purchase technology and sponsored training trips for...

LATEST NEWS

Reregulate.

Lee Hepner and William J. McGee respond to Clifford Winston’s ProMarket piece asserting that further deregulation of the airline industry would resolve problems in the industry. Instead, the authors claim a return to regulation would produce better results for travelers.

A World With Far Fewer Mergers

Brooke Fox and Walter Frick analyze research and ideas presented at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference that question the value of mergers.

The Banking Risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies

The implementation of central bank digital currencies as the primary medium of exchange would exacerbate the flaws of our current fiat system which encourage banks to overextend credit and create liabilities that they cannot redeem. This will worsen the already recurring cycles of financial crises, writes Vibhu Vikramaditya.

The Whig History of the Merger Guidelines

A pervasive "Whig" view of United States antitrust history among scholars and practitioners celebrates the Merger Guidelines' implementation of increasingly sophisticated economic methods since their...

Algorithmic Collusion in the Housing Market

While the development of artificial intelligence has led to efficient business strategies, such as dynamic pricing, this new technology is vulnerable to collusion and consumer harm when companies share the same software through a central platform. Gabriele Bortolotti highlights the importance of antitrust enforcement in this domain for the second article in our series, using as a case study the RealPage class action lawsuit in the Seattle housing market.