Antitrust and Competition

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...

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.

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.

Appraising the Google Search Antitrust Remedies

Erik Hovenkamp and A. Douglas Melamed discuss what Judge Amit Mehta got right and wrong in his remedy decision in the Google Search antitrust case.

How Firms Use Public Communication To Collude and What Regulators Can Do About It

In new research, Tomaso Duso, Joseph Harrington, Carl Kreuzberg, and Geza Sapi demonstrate how their screening tool can aid antitrust authorities in identifying potential collusion between firms through public communications.

The FTC’s Investigation Into Gender-Affirming Care Exemplifies Its Impressment Into the Culture Wars

Luke Herrine evaluates the Federal Trade Commission’s transformation into a political tool to advance a conservative social agenda. He argues that no FTC initiative better exemplifies the agency’s politicization than its investigation into gender-affirming care that threatens transgender rights and autonomy.

How Has Industry Consolidation Changed the Way Americans Shop?

In new research, Dominic Smith and Sergio Ocampo show that retail concentration has increased in most markets across the United States, with the expansion of large retail chains driving the trend toward a more concentrated retail landscape. Their findings are based on new product-level census data for all U.S. retailers. They explain the implications of this increased concentration for the everyday shopping experience of clothing, electronics, groceries, and much more.

Antitrust and Opposition to Policy Change

The following is an adapted excerpt from “Monopoly Politics: Competition and Learning in the Evolution of Policy Regimes” by Erik Peinert, now out at Oxford University Press. 

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