News

In a new report from the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Alissa Cooper, Jasper van den Boom, and Zander Arnao examine how to make remedies most effective in the Google Search antitrust case. They argue that restoring competition in online search requires a comprehensive package of remedies that takes into account the multiple levers by which Google Search built, maintains, and could rebuild its monopoly.

Eleanor Fox writes that the paradigm shift in United States antitrust is not best understood as an embrace of neo-Brandeisian anti-bigness ideas but rather a rejection of neoliberal principles that have prevented effective antitrust regulation for decades. The shift encompasses the concerns and efforts of centrists, progressives, and neo-Brandeisians.

John W. Mayo reviews whether or not the articulated principles and priorities of the Neo-Brandeisian movement in antitrust scholarship and enforcement represent a “paradigm shift,” per the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn. Mayo finds that the Neo-Brandeisian discourse is best understood as situated within the continuum of the current antitrust paradigm, and that many of its efforts to substantiate its distinctive ideas have failed to properly ground them in empiricism or repudiate existing studies.

A new paper by Cortelyou C. Kenney explores new developments in game theory to question some of the fundamental assumptions of classical law and economics scholarship, especially the scholarship of John Nash. She suggests that a more sophisticated understanding of cooperation can create fairer and more just institutions that maximize social welfare instead of individual efficiency. 

In new research, Filippo Lancieri and Tommaso Valletti analyze the shortcomings of the current merger review system and defend stronger rebuttable structural presumptions as an important step forward.

Fiona Scott Morton reviews the merits of the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for suppressing competition in pharmaceutical markets. Although the complaint’s alleged harms are narrow, it is a welcome start that promises to shed light on the PBM’s expansive anticompetitive practices and ultimately lower drug prices for Americans.

Todd A. Gormley, Manish Jha and Meng Wang examine the impact of state-level political dynamics on the support institutional investors provide to socially responsible investing (SRI) proposals. The findings reveal that investors are less likely to support SRI initiatives at firms headquartered in Republican-led states, suggesting that regional political pressures are shaping corporate social responsibility trends.

Competition policy in the European Union is moving toward a new phase. Max von Thun parses ideas from two recent documents outlining the future of competition in the EU—a report from former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and a “Mission Letter” from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—to understand what questions competition chief Margrethe Vestager’s appointed replacement, Teresa Ribera, must address as she lays out her own vision for the future of competition policy in the EU.

Conflicts of interest are a serious problem in scholarship. Transparency and discounting, while necessary, are insufficient to protect the marketplace of ideas. Why?  Founder effects and dilution of expertise, explain Maurice E. Stucke and R. Alexander Bentley. To protect the integrity of academia, we must also encourage the injection and consideration of new and contradictory unconflicted ideas.

Kevin Frazier writes that the Neo-Brandeisian movement’s focus on bigness as a harm to society in itself neglects the true focus of antitrust policy—protection of individual liberty, as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. He argues that a Neo-Jeffersonian approach would clarify antitrust’s goals and produce more appropriate government intervention in markets.