antitrust and competition

Drawing on new research, Oles Andriychuk identifies eight defining features of the European Union’s and United Kingdom’s new laws to regulate competition in digital markets that transform how we understand competition policy.

Eric Posner discusses why many antitrust professionals believe the law follows economic interpretation, despite the absence of economics in the relevant statutes. He argues that antitrust laws themselves have been resistant to adopting a coherent "economic theory" approach, leading to a tension between the economic views of agencies and academics versus the legal interpretations taken by courts.

Similar to noncompete clauses in employment contracts, training repayment agreements, which require employees to pay back their employers for firm-sponsored training if they quit early, can impede worker mobility and reduce competition in labor markets. The authors document the pervasiveness and characteristics of these provisions and suggest directions for future research.

Neoclassical economics, which places the rational and well-informed actor maximizing utility at its foundation, underpins the dominant schools of thought on firm behavior in antitrust. Although neoclassical economics assumes that firms maximize profit, it has little to say on the actual decision-making processes within firms that drive firm conduct. In part, this is because neoclassical economists view the firm as a “black box,” whose decision-making behavior is too idiosyncratic or obscure to link to output and performance. At the same time, neoclassical assumptions about firm rationality and profit maximization mean that whatever these idiosyncratic behaviors of the individual firm may be, they are designed to maximize profit and returns to owners. Thus, firm decisions can be presumed to be rational.

Competition authorities and analysts are increasingly focused on the impact of mergers and acquisitions on worker welfare. Using a novel dataset on Canadian firms and workers, David Arnold, Kevin Milligan, Terry S. Moon and Amirhossein Tavakoli test the empirical validity of several theories on how M&A may help or harm workers.

Critics of the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit last week to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger claim that the agency incorrectly limits the relevant buyer-side market to unionized grocery workers. Steve C. Salop argues that the critics are wrong, and that standard antitrust analysis shows the FTC has it right.

For the first time in decades, the Department of Justice filed suit against an airline merger—and won. William McGee argues that the next fight is correcting false assertions concerning JetBlue and Spirit for the sake of future potential mergers, such as one between Alaskan and Hawaiian Airlines.

Although the antimonopoly neo-Brandeisians and the labor movement share many goals, including a desire to reduce the power of big business, significant tensions exist, such as labor’s past support for mergers when they advance the ability of workers to unionize. Kate Andrias traces the history of labor’s relation with antitrust to show that, despite historical and contemporary tensions, there have also been deep connections between the two movements that show how they can better complement each other in the future.

Tommaso Valletti argues that economic consultants have made little meaningful contribution to antitrust policy and enforcement over the past 20 years—despite their assertions of bringing academic insights to practice. Valletti calls for more critical scrutiny of consultants' biased economic analyses by antitrust authorities and courts, as well as greater use of structural presumptions in merger review.

At the heart of the United States Google Search case is the monopolizing effect of Google securing for its own search offering the status of default search engine on a web browser, such as Safari, Chrome, or Firefox. The authors review the behavioral economics and empirical evidence of this effect and suggest several conduct and structural remedies to open up the search market to competition.