News

Recent government wins against Big Tech demonstrate the prudence of proactively stopping consolidation in the emerging AI startup ecosystem to prevent harm to innovation and consumers. OpenAI’s recent acquisition of Windsurf raises these competition concerns. The antitrust agencies should block it.

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.

Brent Fulton discusses private equity’s investments in hospitals and assesses the risks it presents to key stakeholders: private equity investors, debt investors, patients, and the government. He argues financial transparency regulation is needed so fraudulent transfer and bankruptcy laws can be enforced to reduce uncompensated risk being borne by patients and the government (ultimately taxpayers).

Melissa Newham reviews how investors can alter the incentives and behavior of pharmaceutical companies to reduce competition and consumer welfare through common ownership and “rollup” deals.

Populist leaders like United States President Donald Trump are zealously challenging the authority of independent technocrats and judges. This backlash follows decades of steadily increasing delegation of policymaking authority to unelected experts, bureaucratic agencies, and the judiciary. In new research, Gabriele Gratton and Jacob Edenhofer argue that such backlash is a predictable development in political environments where majorities are unstable and new political coalitions frequently favor policies at odds with those crafted by social welfare-maximizing technocrats.

Over the last year, the United States government has demonstrated increased concern about private equity’s involvement in health care. Barak Richman and Richard Scheffler...

In the wake of Democrats’ losses in 2024, progressives should focus on how antitrust can support a lower cost of living and increase consumer access to essential goods and services, writes Diana Moss.

Wendy Li writes that business leaders must rediscover past unity and put pressure on politicians to defend against President Donald Trump’s attacks on businesses and civil society and prevent democratic backsliding.

The following is a transcript of John Ioannidis's keynote address at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference—Economic Concentration and the Marketplace of Ideas.

Marios Constantine Iacovides discusses his and Konstantinos Stylianou’s empirical investigations into how the goals of competition policy have evolved over time. They find that a multitude of goals have always been present in judicial and regulatory decisions, but the emphasis on certain goals has vacillated in response to the concerns of the time. Contemporary concerns about the health of democracy suggest a revival of ordoliberalism and protection of the competitive process.