John Kwoka

John Kwoka writes that the antitrust agencies under President Joe Biden made thoughtful revisions to the Merger Guidelines that will strengthen enforcement and competition. However, they still fall short in their treatment of the structural presumption and efficiencies defense, where both economics and the law provide grounds for strengthening. Current practices strain agency resources and permit anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions. The next administration must revisit these two issues.

Drawing on their research, John Kwoka and Tommaso Valletti refute criticisms of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster that argue such actions irreparably ruin the operations of the constituent firms. The authors highlight the many examples of successful breakups and conclude that only a breakup will now repair the market for live entertainment.

The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.

Most mergers in industries with only a handful of competitors are anticompetitive, so why don’t we block them? The fix is to use a structural presumption to lower the burden for regulators.

The time has come to update our antitrust enforcement infrastructure. There is a renewed focus on the effectiveness of antitrust policy, specifically merger review. Growing...