Liad Wagman

Liad Wagman is Dean of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Lally School of Management. He was previously John and Mae Calamos Dean Endowed Chair and professor of economics at Illinois Tech's Stuart School of Business. Wagman is an academic affiliate at the International Center for Law and Economics and was senior economic and technology advisor of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning, competition fellow at the Data Catalyst Institute, and a visiting professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He has visited as a scholar or research fellow at Duke University and Stanford University. He is a recipient of the Program for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences Fellowship, a recipient of the Education and Research Initiative Award, a recipient of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Best Paper Award, and a recipient of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Outstanding Paper Award. Wagman received his Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Duke University and his M.S. in computer science from Stanford University.

Four Key Questions on Antitrust in Tech for the Next Four Years

Over the past four years, antitrust scrutiny has increasingly focused on large technology firms. Ginger Zhe Jin and Liad Wagman discuss the complexities of antitrust enforcement and policy in the digital age, highlighting the challenges of promoting innovation while fostering competition, and areas where consumer protection and antitrust are colliding or are set to collide. To that end, the authors identify several key questions that the next administration of the United States should address to better delineate between legal and illegal competitive practices in the digital age, with implications for the broader economy.

The Draft Merger Guidelines Risk Reducing Innovation

The draft Merger Guidelines seek to reduce mergers and acquisitions, especially those that remove potential entrants. However, precluding acquisitions in those settings ignores both what incentivizes startups and investors to take initial risks, as well as the advantages that large incumbents have to parlay acquisitions into further innovation and an array of widely commercialized consumer products. The overall effect may dampen innovation, write Ginger Zhe Jin, Mario Leccese, and Liad Wagman.

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