The Role of the State

For decades antitrust agencies, courts, and scholars have debated whether Section 7 of the Clayton Act permits an efficiency defense, in which merging firms can argue that enhanced efficiencies from the merger show that it does not reduce competition. However, the Supreme Court’s recent establishment of the “major questions doctrine,” which enforces or re-enforces a textualist reading of regulatory statues, undermines proponents of the efficiency defense, because the Clayton Act does not clearly and explicitly contain an efficiency defense. The “major questions doctrine” essentially acts as textualism on steroids,” writes Robert H. Lande.

Financial crises routinely trigger sweeping overhauls of financial regulation, but whose interests do these reforms serve? In new research, Orkun Saka, Yuemei Ji, and Clement Minaudier find that political leaders facing term limits are much more likely to respond to financial crises by introducing reforms that benefit banks over the public or long-term financial stability. This phenomenon occurs more frequently in countries where the revolving door between politics and finance is common.

Firms can now charge each shopper a different price, and regulators worry that the gains will flow from consumers to companies. But personalized pricing has two built-in limits: shoppers learn to hide how much they want things, and cheap purchases can be resold, writes Nursultan Mukhtaruly.

In new analysis, Madhav Parikh examines how competition among banks in the United States shapes the way monetary policy reaches depositors. Tracking U.S. banks from late 2021 through mid-2026, he finds that banks in more concentrated local markets repriced their deposit interest rates less than banks in competitive markets, both as the Fed raised rates and as it cut them.

The Digital Markets Act establishes central rules and enforcement for digital platforms across the European Union, but allows decentralized private enforcement on the national level. In new research, Lena Hornkohl and Barbara Justen reflect on how two recent German court cases show how national litigation can make the DMA more effective, but also highlight the need for mechanisms that aid in consistent interpretation.

Consumers are anxious about the economy, and it’s due not only to inflation but to market power that raises prices and reduces quality, variety, and innovation. Policymakers’ prescriptions for resolving the cost-of-living crisis have mostly ignored the role of antitrust policy, but waning competition is at the heart of these problems, writes Diana L. Moss.

In new research, Elettra Bietti compares the efficacy of the two legal avenues that have arisen to restrain social media’s ability to monopolize people’s time and attention: antitrust policy and product liability for consumer harm. Looking at the results of two recent Meta cases, she finds that product liability has proven the most capable in introducing the frictions needed to reduce social media’s addictive design.

The Chicago School believed that markets operate best when they are left to organize themselves, and that state regulation only disrupts this process to...

The United States government launched the American AI Exports Program to help American firms win contracts from international customers. In a bid to enhance international competitiveness, the program risks stifling domestic competition, writes Javaid Sofi.

In new research, Nicholas Short, Sophie Hill, and Jacob Brown examine "ideological capture": regulatory capture that works not through lobbying but through experts defining what goals and values regulators may consider. Surveying the public alongside antitrust lawyers, they find the consumer welfare standard marginalizes important public concerns, like the risk of increased layoffs or more lobbying power.