Chris Sagers suggests that something significant could be happening in antitrust, though it probably remains academic for now, and it is hidden behind political messaging that in recent times has gotten most of the attention. He argues that the populist or politicizing talk of antitrust leaders during both the present administration and the last one has grown more detached from real-world administration. But he argues that there may be real change going on behind the scenes, as expressed in positions among some conservatives and Republican office-holders. He argues that the libertarian orthodoxy of the Chicago School no longer defines “conservative” antitrust, and that the range of plausible disagreement may genuinely be changing.

COMMENTARY

The Political Economy of Distrust in Science

Skewed incentives and the distribution of resources toward corporations have undermined the integrity of...

RESEARCH

How Partisan Control Over Redistricting Has Shaped Political Power in Congress

In new research, Kenneth Coriale, Ethan Kaplan, and Daniel Kolliner show how the Republican Party has benefited more from redistricting and gerrymandering. Their research has important implications for political power and representation in today’s era of razor-thin Congressional majorities.
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A New Capitalisn’t Episode

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LATEST

The New “Conservative” Merger Policy Is Not Antitrust. It’s Anti-Speech

Rebecca Haw Allensworth writes that the hallmark of the new conservative antitrust is not economic populism but silencing speech that the Trump administration ideologically opposes.

Will Trump’s Drug-Pricing Order Reduce Prices for Americans?

President Donald Trump has, across two administrations, sought to lower drug prices for Americans, most recently with executive order “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients.” Margherita Colangelo explains why his order is unlikely to accomplish its goal.

The European Commission Can and Must Act on Excessive Pricing

The European Commission has struggled to tackle excessive prices in Europe, despite evidence of how they arise in relation to market power. Aline Blankertz, Todd Davies, Justine Haekens, and Nicholas Shaxson argue that adopting accounting and financial analysis as part of its toolkit can enable the Commission to understand and act when firms are exploiting their market power.

There Is Only Democratic Antitrust

Reed Showalter argues that the suggestion that antitrust can be ringfenced from democracy or the democratic process is erroneous. Antitrust is fundamentally a body...

How can Economic Regulation Be Made More Democratic?

Yunsieg P. Kim argues that economic regulation, including antitrust, can only be democratic if it is the choice of well-informed citizens. This article is part...

READING LISTS

Americans spend significantly more on health care than any other country. Why? Answers to this question range from hospital monopolies to perverse incentives to opaque pricing to medical licensing to pharmaceutical firms abusing IP practices to “creeping consolidation.” Why is the US health care system so broken? And what can antirust do about it? Catch-up on our coverage of antitrust and the US health care system.

Is Competition Law Making Us Sick?

In new research, Benjamin Wood, Sven Gallasch, Nicholas Shaxson, Katherine Sievert, and Gary Sacks write that competition underenforcement and a narrow regulatory focus on prices and output has allowed industries that produce harmful consumer products, such as tobacco or ultra-processed foods, to increase demand and, consequentially, harm to society. They argue that competition law must evolve to consider health impacts.

Is Private Equity’s Involvement in Healthcare Really Harmful?

Anthony T. LoSasso, Ge Bai, and Lawton Robert Burns argue that critics of private equity’s involvement in healthcare ignore that it is often the only financial lifeline available to distressed healthcare providers and can introduce an improvement in outcomes, including quality of care.

How Private Equity Hurts the Healthcare Workforce

Theodosia Stavroulaki reviews how the involvement of private equity in American healthcare leads to, among other negative outcomes, burnout and stress among healthcare workers, particularly physicians. She writes that the consequences could cripple America’s healthcare system.

Does Private Equity Harm the Welfare of Residents in Nursing Homes?

Robert I. Field argues that private equity’s impact on price competition among nursing homes is limited because prices are mostly determined by Medicaid. However, private equity does impact quality and labor outcomes, which deserve greater government scrutiny.

George J. Stigler, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982 “for his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets, and causes and effects of public regulation.” His research upended the idea that government regulation was effective at correcting private-market failures. Stigler introduced the idea of regulatory capture, in which regulators could be dominated by special interests. These regulators would work for the benefit of large, monied organizations rather than the public good. Catch up on ProMarket's coverage of his legacy.

Economic Concentration and Its Dual Threats to Democracy

Erik Peinert explores the paradoxical relationship between economic concentration and democracy, where economic concentration compromises the democratic process and democratic backsliding also gains momentum by taking advantage of concentrated market actors, whose political power is now impotent, to capture civil society.

Plumbers, Populists, and the Role of Public Opinion in Antitrust

Sean Sullivan discusses the role public opinion should play in setting antitrust policy and what should be left to the expert economists.

Democratic Antitrust Is Impractical. Enforcers Can Push Boundaries Without Overreach

Recent years have witnessed a significant wave of initiatives aimed at expanding antitrust’s substantive reach and reinvigorating enforcement, both to counter decades of weakened enforcement and to address contemporary economic realities. These efforts have coincided with calls to “democratize” antitrust by engaging the public in policymaking. Barak Orbach argues that such “democratized antitrust” is impractical, but boundary-pushing dynamics are central to the evolution of antitrust. He offers a conceptual guide for antitrust boundary pushing.

Germany’s CumEx and CumCum Financial Scandals Reveal How Democratic Institutions Fail

Gerhard Schick discusses the CumEx and CumCum share-trading scandals that cost German taxpayers billions of euros over the course of several decades and the failures in political and social institutions that allowed these scandals to persist for so long.

How To Stop the Scourge of Corporate Pardons

Former Federal Trade Commissioner and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra writes that as the federal government circumvents the rule of law by pardoning corporate infractions and crimes in exchange for political favors, individual states, citizens, and businesses will need to pursue private actions against corporate wrongdoing.

The EU Must Revise Its Merger Guidelines To Strengthen Innovation, Security, and Democracy

Max von Thun and Claire Lavin argue that the European Commission must revise its merger guidelines to emphasize how competition policy can protect goals beyond prices, including innovation, security, and democracy. This will create a more prosperous European Union.

How Income Inequality Today Differs From the Past

Surya Gowda reviews Branko Milanović’s Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War and how his analysis of class and inequality applies to contemporary America.

COLUMNS

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