Tag: antitrust
I wish I could confidently say that economics and law will drive antitrust in 2023, but I cannot. Tech antitrust cases pursued in the US and Europe in 2021 and 2022 have been poorly conceived and built on weak factual and economic foundations. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) leadership is seeking to turn the agency away [...]
Rumor has it that sponsors of the Open App Markets Act (OAMA) are rushing the legislation through Congress before the end of the current session. I won’t speculate on why the sponsors are in a hurry. But I will challenge their claims that the smartphone and app industries need a regulatory rescue, even if the [...]
Mergers often scare people, especially antitrust experts. Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 scared Queens College of the City University of New York Professor Douglas Rushkoff, who said allowing such mergers is a threat “to our markets, our economy, and even our planet.” Former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Robert Pitofsky was worried that [...]
AEI’s technology policy scholars have been hard at work this summer. Antitrust cases at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), continued debate around Big Tech regulatory proposals in Congress, a massive bipartisan investment in semiconductor chip manufacturing, and the rollout of a national broadband infrastructure funding program are just a few examples of recent policy developments [...]
The success of the digital economy has given rise to some of the wealthiest companies the world has ever known. Over the last decade or more, concerns have arisen among some economists about whether existing antitrust laws are adequate to address the market power exercised by these “Big Tech” companies and their products and platforms [...]