Regulation

The revived American Innovation Choice Online Act singles out a handful of Big Tech giants for unique, antitrust-like restrictions, but without the standard methodological...

In new research, Semih Üslü and Flavien Moreau argue that waves of mergers and acquisition, which are typically unstable and ultimately crash, are not driven by changes in economic conditions, but by self-reinforcing appetite for mergers among firms when others are also engaging in M&A. Policies that drive stable, low-merger conditions can lead to better outcomes for consumers.

California’s proposed wealth tax on billionaires will struggle to accurately value and tax the wealth of California’s richest. Rather than fund the state’s massive budgetary commitments, the bill may drive away its largest taxpayers, write Ray Ball and Andrew Sutherland.

The United States healthcare system has experienced an expansion of private equity ownership. In new research, Theodosia Stavroulaki argues that private equity acquisitions risk harming healthcare by increasing prices, reducing quality of care, limiting access to care, and hurting the labor force.

The European Union’s draft Merger Guidelines strengthen competition enforcement by acknowledging the potential harms of market concentration to society, including worker bargaining power and more vulnerable democratic institutions. However, Max von Thun and Claire Lavin argue that this progress is undermined by the introduction of a bias for scale and efficiency loopholes, which give large corporations more paths to complete a merger.

In new research, Grace Fan, Trung Nguyen, and Xi Wu show how improvements in government data transparency and disclosure through the public rollout of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool enabled civil society to identify and hold polluters responsible and improve overall environmental justice.

In new research, Wei Cai, Andrea Prat, and Jiehang Yu evaluate how mergers affect employee satisfaction. They find that acquired firms report a decline in worker satisfaction, primarily revolving around “soft” benefits, such as workplace culture, management quality, and trust.

In new research, Xiao Dong, Paul Koh, Devesh Raval, Dominic Smith, and Brett Wendling evaluate how well divestiture remedies work for mergers in the supermarket industry. They find that past supermarket divestitures lead to lower employment, reduced sales, and higher rates of exit from the market relative to comparable non-divested supermarkets.  

Digital marketplaces make comparing credit lending options easier for potential borrowers. However, Jeromee "JJ" Johnson cautions that online platforms may be turning comparison itself into a signal to lenders—at a cost to applicants.

In new research, Luca Macedoni and Ariel Weinberger argue that large firms are more likely to lobby in favor of strict industry regulations when they can reduce competition by imposing high fixed costs on smaller, less-profitable firms.