antitrust and competition

Diana Moss and Jason Gold write that the major private antitrust lawsuit involving how the National Collegiate Athletic Association governs compensation for college student athletes overreaches by remaking the model of college sports in the United States. Instead, the paradigm shift in college athletics should be deliberated and decided through the legislative process.

In part II of a two-part series, Michael A. Carrier analyzes the merits and strengths of the government’s recent lawsuit against Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, for monopolizing the live entertainment market. See here for part I.

In part I of a two-part series, Michael A. Carrier outlines the evidence behind the government’s recent lawsuit against Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, for monopolizing the live entertainment market. Part II will come out tomorrow.

In new research, Tommaso Crescioli & Toon Van Overbeke find that small business owners and their families who have lost revenue share to rising market concentration among big businesses have turned to far-right political parties to express their grievances.

Roslyn Layton highlights a recent data breach that exposed the personal information of millions of customers, including those who never directly used Ticketmaster's services, underscoring concerns about the company's data collection practices and market dominance.

Concerns about market concentration and its effects on competition are at the heart of antitrust policy. Will Macheel explains the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) as a common measure of market concentration, its implications for United States antitrust policy, and potential drawbacks of the measure. He closes the article by highlighting research on the HHI as a regulatory tool for screening mergers.

Eric A. Posner argues that merger review would benefit from involving union representatives to protect labor interests.

Gus Hurwitz replies to Jonathan Masur and Eric Posner’s May 8 article defending the Federal Trade Commission’s Congressional mandate to enforce a rule banning noncompetes. He argues that Congressional responses to FTC rulemaking in the 1970s suggest courts are unlikely to find that the FTC possesses such authority, either as a matter of statutory interpretation or under the major questions doctrine.

Drawing on their research, John Kwoka and Tommaso Valletti refute criticisms of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster that argue such actions irreparably ruin the operations of the constituent firms. The authors highlight the many examples of successful breakups and conclude that only a breakup will now repair the market for live entertainment.

Max von Thun writes that Enrico Letta, Mario Draghi, and Emmanuel Macron are right in demanding a new economic vision for the European Union. However, they are wrong to advocate for corporate consolidation as part of the solution. The EU must pursue competition rather than consolidation if it is to create a robust political economy that can take back power from corporate behemoths, deliver growth and jobs to European citizens, and guarantee the future of the European project.