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Richard Wolfram

Netflix Appears To Face Greater Antitrust Barriers To Acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery Than Paramount

Richard Wolfram explores the regulatory concerns of Netflix and Paramount’s competing merger proposals for Warner Bros. Discovery. Based on current antitrust doctrine and guidelines, Paramount would appear to face comparatively fewer barriers to the transaction, but the analysis is hardly black-and-white.

COMMENTARY

The DOJ Knows What To Do About Those Seed Mergers. Will It Reverse Them?

Peter Carstensen
Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater recently gave a speech repudiating the laissez-faire antitrust enforcement policy of past administrations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has ordered antitrust agencies to investigate how price-fixing has raised food prices. If the administration is serious about bringing food prices down for Americans, it should begin by addressing the costs farmers face. For that reason, Slater should investigate and possibly challenge the mergers between large seed sellers that occurred during Trump’s first term in office, writes Peter Carstensen.

RESEARCH

Why the SEC Needs to Require a Stricter Rule Book for Private Equity

Sureyya Burcu Avci, Cindy A. Schipani and Nejat Seyhun
In new research, Sureyya Burcu Avci, Cindy Schipani, and H. Nejat Seyhun assess and justify the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s failed attempts to regulate potential fraud and deception in the private equity market by examining the performance and potential conflicts-of-interest in de-SPAC transactions.
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Cultural Economics

The Bottom-Line Case for Better Workplaces

Mario Amore, Morten Bennedsen, Birthe Larsen and Zeyu Zhao
In new research, Mario Amore, Morten Bennedsen, Birthe Larsen, and Zeyu Zhao examine the symbiotic relationship between working environments and employee well-being, finding that when workers are safe and satisfied, companies profit.
Development

Why Trade-Led Development Is Becoming Harder

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg and Michele Ruta
In new research, Pinelopi Goldberg and Michele Ruta analyze how today’s structural, policy, and geopolitical trade conditions are no longer conducive to the trade-led growth miracles many developing countries experienced in the past.
Stigler Center News

Announcing the Participants in the Spring 2026 Stigler Center Journalists in Residence Program

ProMarket writers
In March, the Stigler Center will welcome nine world-class journalists from the United Kingdom, United States, South Korea, Uganda, Guyana, Belgium, and Turkey for an intensive 12-week program of professional development at Chicago Booth.
Book Excerpts

How Corporations Abuse Bankruptcy Law

Stephen Lubben
The following is an adapted excerpt from “To Protect Their Interests: The Invention and Exploitation of Corporate Bankruptcy" by Stephen J. Lubben, now out at Columbia University Press. 
Antitrust and Competition

Nvidia’s Quasi-Merger With Groq Raises Unique Remedy Concerns

Alexandros Kazimirov
Alexandros Kazimirov discusses how Nvidia’s quasi-merger with Groq resembles a familiar pattern of regulatory evasion that Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have adopted with emerging artificial intelligence companies. He notes that his proposed remedy that was available to antitrust enforcers in the large language model market is not applicable to chip manufacturers like Nvidia.
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READING LISTS

Health Care

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.

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Antitrust and Competition

Novo Nordisk’s Offer To Acquire Metsera Constitutes Attempted Monopolization

Hannah Pittock
Hannah Pittock uses weight-loss company Novo Nordisk’s offer to acquire Metsera to create a three-prong framework by which the antitrust agencies can identify when an invitation to exclude a rival from a market constitutes illegal exclusionary conduct under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
Antitrust and Competition

Novo Nordisk’s Killer Non-Acquisition Merger Contract Proposal Is a Case of “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose”

Steven Salop
Steve Salop explores the anticompetitive innovation behind weight-loss giant Novo Nordisk’s offer to acquire Metsera. Novo’s proposed contract presents a new tactic by which firms with market power can preclude rival mergers that will lead to procompetitive entry.
Commentary

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

Margherita Colangelo
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.
Antitrust and Competition

Is Competition Law Making Us Sick?

Benjamin Wood, Sven Gallasch, Nicholas Shaxson, Katherine Sievert and Gary Sacks
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.

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.

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Big Tech

How FTC v. Meta Reshapes the Debate on Social Media and First Amendment Protections

Mihir Kshirsagar
Mihir Kshirsagar argues that the evidence presented in FTC v. Meta shows that discussions about the application of First Amendment protections to social media must go beyond the binary set in Moody v. NetChoice between treating them as common carriers or editorial agents. Rather, a commercial conduct framework is needed to understand how speech operates on platforms designed to maximize user attention and ad revenue.
Antitrust and Competition

EU’s Aggressive Labor Competition Policy Clashes with Judicial Reality and Benefits No-One

Christian Bergqvist
In recent research, Christian Bergqvist argues that the European Union’s approach to wage-fixing, no-hire, and no-poach agreements reveals a lack of nuance that may end up harming competition.
Research

GenAI is Already Boosting Scientific Output. We Should Embrace It

Dragan Filimonovic, Christian Rutzer and Conny Wunsch
In new research, Dragan Filimonovic, Christian Rutzer, and Conny Wunsch find that generative artificial intelligence not only enhances the productivity of scientific researchers, but also lowers barriers to entry for early-career scholars and scholars who are not fluent in English. Rather than attempting to prohibit GenAI’s use, institutions should develop disclosure guidelines to facilitate trust and support adoption.
Antitrust and Competition

The Apple-Amazon Brand-Gating Agreement Raised Prices for Consumers Without Improving Quality

Muxin Li and Ksenia Shakhgildyan
In new research, Muxin Li and Ksenia Shakhgildyan examine the 2018 “brand gating” agreement between Apple and Amazon and how it impacted competition and consumer welfare on Amazon’s platform.

The Clayton Act Does Not Allow an Efficiency Defense

Robert H. Lande and Mark Glick
Robert H. Lande and Mark Glick respond to recent articles by Nancy Rose & Jonathan Sallet and Herbert Hovenkamp debating the role of an efficiency defense in merger litigation. The authors argue that the debate misses the point that there is no textualist support for such a defense. The recent ProMarket article by Nancy Rose and Jonathan Sallet, “Defending the Merger Efficiency Defense: A Response to Herbert Hovenkamp” and the article it responds to, “The U.S. Supreme Court and the...

The Trends That Will Define US Antitrust in 2026

ProMarket writers
Four experts predict the trends that will define United States antitrust and competition in 2026.

The Trends That Will Define European Antitrust in 2026

ProMarket writers
Four experts predict some of the trends that will define European competition in 2026.

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The publication of the Stigler Center at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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.