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Antitrust and Competition

A key distinction in economic viewpoints that goes oft-unnoticed is between pro-business and pro-market. A good bellwether to where someone stands on the pro-business/market continuum is his/her stance on antitrust policy: pro-business usually favors incumbents, while pro-market calls for aggressive antitrust enforcement to facilitate competition.
“I would not dispute that even a monopoly-ridden market would be preferable to any economic system trying to operate without any kind of a market. But given the prevalence or the danger of substantial intrusion of monopoly into the market, the logic of the laissez faire defense of the market against state-intervention collapses and there is called for instead, by its very logic, state-suppression or state-regulation of monopoly practices, which one may wish to call, as Henry Simons called it, an instance of “positive laissez faire” or, as I prefer, as an instance of deliberate departure from laissez faire.” Jacob Viner – The Intellectual History of Laissez Faire (1960)

Antitrust and Competition

Why Business Should Be More Prosocial, and Ten Guidelines for How

Steven Salop
Business and economic thought instituted at least since the Reagan revolution in the United States have promoted firms’ narrowly self-interested, profit-maximizing conduct even at the expense of consumers and workers. This paradigm leads to social distrust and insufficient cooperation. Steven C. Salop explains this distortion and proposes 10 guidelines by which firms can self-moderate their behavior to produce prosocial outcomes.
Antitrust and Competition

Has Antitrust Been Captured by Big Business Interests? It’s Not So Simple

Jonathan B. Baker
Why has antitrust enforcement declined in the United States since the 1970s? Is it due to the preferences of voters, business influence, or an alternative explanation altogether? In this symposium, Jonathan Baker, Eleanor Fox, and Herbert Hovenkamp discuss the findings of Filippo Lancieri, Eric Posner, and Luigi Zingales’ new paper, “The Political Economy of the Decline of Antitrust Enforcement in the United States.” In this article, Baker critiques the big business capture theory the authors develop and suggests an alternative “settlement” theory to explain the shift toward weaker antitrust enforcement that began in the 1970s.
Antitrust and Competition

Confidentiality Agreements Can Act Like Noncompetes

Camilla Hrdy
Noncompete agreements, which impose contractual limits on an employee’s ability to work after leaving a job, are regulated or banned in all states. But employers can potentially get around legal limitations on noncompetes by asking workers to sign confidentiality agreements that have similar functional effects. In a new article, Camilla A. Hrdy and Christopher B. Seaman provide empirical evidence that a significant number of employment agreements contain broad confidentiality provisions that place noncompete-like restrictions on workers.
Antitrust and Competition

The Surprising Culprit Behind Declining US Antitrust Enforcement

Herbert Hovenkamp
In contrast to a recent paper that argues the decline in antitrust enforcement over recent decades is due largely to the political influence of big business, Herbert Hovenkamp argues that small businesses and trade associations have historically had more influence over antitrust policy, often lobbying for less competition and higher prices.
Antitrust and Competition

The Political Economy of the Decline of Antitrust Enforcement in the US

Filippo Lancieri
Why has antitrust enforcement declined in the United States since the 1970s? Is it due to the preferences of voters or business influence? In this symposium, Jonathan Baker, Eleanor Fox, and Herbert Hovenkamp will discuss the findings of Eric Posner, Luigi Zingales and Filippo Lancieri’s new paper, “The Political Economy of the Decline of Antitrust Enforcement in the United States.” Lancieri summarizes the findings of the paper here.
Antitrust and Competition

Firms Sharing Board Members Can Collude To Reduce Worker Mobility

Taylor Begley
In new research, Taylor Begley, Peter Haslag, and Daniel Weagley find that when firms begin sharing a common director, there is a significant reduction in the number of employees that switch jobs between the two companies. The reduction is largest when the firms compete in the same labor market and for those employees who are most costly for firms to replace. The results show the link between overlapping board members and anticompetitive labor practices is a surprisingly widespread phenomenon.
Antitrust and Competition

Antitrust Needs To Draw on Computer Science To Detect Algorithmic Collusion

Giovanna Massarotto
In new research, Giovanna Massarotto explains how collusion manifests differently in the digital economy. She argues that antitrust regulators, scholars, and courts need to incorporate lessons from computer science to update how they monitor markets and identify algorithmic collusion.
Antitrust and Competition

How Stricter Merger Guidelines Benefit Workers

Kyle Herkenhoff
Stricter merger policy guidelines will increase competition, leading to higher wages and welfare for workers, writes Kyle Herkenhoff and Simon Mongey. The authors use economic modeling to show that the stricter 2023 Guidelines will improve worker welfare, and that even tighter thresholds can be applied to labor markets to amplify worker welfare gains from antitrust policy.
Antitrust and Competition

Antitrust Scholarship Must Start Taking Predictability Seriously

Jan Broulík
Academic writings on the optimal design of antitrust rules fail to pay sufficient attention to enforcement predictability as a relevant factor. In new research, Jan Broulík analyzes the various ways in which predictability is disregarded and their possible underlying reasons.
Antitrust and Competition

Epic v. Google Offers Courts Chance To Correct Course on “Right To Repair”

Daniel McCuaig
Following the Federal Trade Commission’s 2021 publication of “Nixing the Fix: An FTC Report to Congress on Repair Restrictions,” private “right to repair” cases have multiplied against companies that leverage their market power in a “primary equipment market” (e.g., tractors) to force their customers also to purchase their offerings in “aftermarkets” (e.g., tractor repairs) that otherwise would be competitive. Daniel McCuaig argues that the application of the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc. to these cases misunderstands that case and improperly shields monopolists from competitive pressures, including in Epic’s recent case against Apple.
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The publication of the Stigler Center at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.