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.
New York Judge Victor Marrero allowed two major mobile companies to merge in an already concentrated telecom industry, ensuring that prices will rise and...
Due to a change in how the FDIC resolves failed banks, uninsured deposits have become de facto insured. Not only is this dangerous for risk in the banking system, it is not what Congress intends the FDIC to do, writes Michael Ohlrogge.
Steven C. Salop argues that Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers in which the acquiring firm’s unilateral incentives and business strategy are likely to lessen market competition.
Former special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy Tim Wu responds to the November 27 letter signed by former chief economists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division calling for a separation of the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines.
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.