antitrust and competition

In a new paper, Joseph Emmens, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, Stefano Manfredonia, Felix Noth, and Tommaso Santini find that when competitors for the same pool of workers share investors, they increase their innovation to automate tasks and slow down hiring.    

Supporters of more robust antitrust policy have pointed to the subsequent success of Figma after authorities blocked Adobe’s acquisition of it. Skeptics, including venture capitalists, have argued that the one case reveals nothing systematic about the benefits of stronger merger review. Venture capitalists happen to be the one party with the data and resources to fund the studies to show any systematic correlation one way or the other. They should do so, writes Shishene Jing.

The revived American Innovation Choice Online Act singles out a handful of Big Tech giants for unique, antitrust-like restrictions, but without the standard methodological...

In new research, Semih Üslü and Flavien Moreau argue that waves of mergers and acquisition, which are typically unstable and ultimately crash, are not driven by changes in economic conditions, but by self-reinforcing appetite for mergers among firms when others are also engaging in M&A. Policies that drive stable, low-merger conditions can lead to better outcomes for consumers.

The EU’s constitutional framework and European Union Court of Justice’ case law have evolved since the European Union enacted the first Merger Guidelines in 2004. The revised Merger Guidelines should better engage with these developments and reflect the priority constitutional values and democracy now play in economic policy, writes Kati Cseres.

In new research examining 44 million U.S. mortgages and nearly 5,000 bank mergers over three decades, Celso Brunetti, Jeffrey H. Harris, and Ioannis Spyridopoulos find that bank consolidation does not raise mortgage rates, restrict credit access, or degrade loan quality. Local mortgage markets remain intensely competitive. 

The European Union’s draft Merger Guidelines give a central role to dynamic competition in merger review. Some scholars have criticized dynamic competition as an analytical tool that seems to always discourage government intervention, given how quickly and unexpectedly—or dynamically—innovation can remake a market. Nicolas Petit, Selcukhan Unekbas, Bowman Heiden, and Pierre Regibeau argue this critique ignores the several large cases in which regulators used dynamic competition to intervene in a merger.

The draft EU Merger Guidelines open merger analysis to non-economic considerations, including choice, supply chain resilience, and sustainability. However, they do not yet explain how these considerations will be paired with a traditional consumer welfare analysis of price and quantity. Maciej Bernatt and Simbarashe Tavuyanago look to South Africa to devise a “vulnerable consumer test” that can help bridge these economic and non-economic goals.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s argument that businesses need to be able to easily switch between artificial intelligence models is correct but elides the fact,...

In new research, Vishavdeep Sharma and Krishnendu Ghosh Dastidar analyze corporate corruption through the lens of market competition. Firms often bribe officials to block rivals from entering their markets, and their incentive to do so depends less on how competitive a market is than on what kind of competition it has.