Showing results for: “%22whole foods%22”
Antitrust at the Agencies Roundup: Supply Chains, Noncompetes, and Greedflation
The big news from the agencies may be the lawsuit filed today by the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) and 16 states against Apple alleging monopoly maintenance in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. It’s an 86-page complaint and it’s just out. I’ll write more about it next week. Two quick observations: First, the ... Antitrust at the Agencies Roundup: Supply Chains, Noncompetes, and Greedflation
Antitrust at the Agencies Roundup: The Joint FTC/DOJ Guidelines to Nowhere (or Nowhere Good) Edition
The FTC and DOJ have done it: on July 19 they released the long awaited (or dreaded) draft merger guidelines, which . . . well, could have been worse, given current agency leadership, but could have been better (as demonstrated by the certainly imperfect, but still better, 2010 guidelines they replaced). Jumping on the agencies’ ... Antitrust at the Agencies Roundup: The Joint FTC/DOJ Guidelines to Nowhere (or Nowhere Good) Edition
Antitrust Populists Don’t Seem to Care About the Poor
Antitrust populists like Biden White House official Tim Wu and author Matt Stoller decry the political influence of large firms. But instead of advocating for policies that tackle this political influence directly, they seek reforms to antitrust enforcement that aim to limit the economic advantages of these firms, believing that will translate into political enfeeblement. ... Antitrust Populists Don’t Seem to Care About the Poor
U.S. Senate Self-Preferencing Bill Offers Perfect Recipe for Regulatory Overreach
Even as delivery services work to ship all of those last-minute Christmas presents that consumers bought this season from digital platforms and other e-commerce sites, the U.S. House and Senate are contemplating Grinch-like legislation that looks to stop or limit how Big Tech companies can “self-preference” or “discriminate” on their platforms. A platform “self-preferences” when ... U.S. Senate Self-Preferencing Bill Offers Perfect Recipe for Regulatory Overreach
Alston Decision Shows Consumer Welfare Standard Isn’t Broken
From Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), populist calls to “fix” our antitrust laws and the underlying Consumer Welfare Standard have found a foothold on Capitol Hill. At the same time, there are calls to “fix” the Supreme Court by packing it with new justices. The court’s unanimous decision in NCAA v. ... Alston Decision Shows Consumer Welfare Standard Isn’t Broken
The Case Against Google Advertising: What’s the Relevant Market and How Many Are There?
U.S. antitrust regulators have a history of narrowly defining relevant markets—often to the point of absurdity—in order to create market power out of thin air. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) famously declared that Whole Foods and Wild Oats operated in the “premium natural and organic supermarkets market”—a narrowly defined market designed to exclude other supermarkets ... The Case Against Google Advertising: What’s the Relevant Market and How Many Are There?
The Capitalist’s Lived Experience
Speaking about his new book in a ProMarket interview, David Dayen inadvertently captures what is perhaps the essential disconnect between antitrust reformers (populists, neo-Brandeisians, hipsters, whatever you may call them) and those of us who are more comfortable with the antitrust status quo (whatever you may call us). He says: “The antitrust doctrine that we’ve ... The Capitalist’s Lived Experience
The Furman Report is a Flimsy Basis for a New UK Competition Policy
Earlier this year the UK government announced it was adopting the main recommendations of the Furman Report into competition in digital markets and setting up a “Digital Markets Taskforce” to oversee those recommendations being put into practice. The Competition and Markets Authority’s digital advertising market study largely came to similar conclusions (indeed, in places it ... The Furman Report is a Flimsy Basis for a New UK Competition Policy
Uber/Grubhub: Pandemic Profiteering, Merger Moratoriums, and Rising Concentration … Or Not
Earlier this week, merger talks between Uber and food delivery service Grubhub surfaced. House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David N. Cicilline quickly reacted to the news: Americans are struggling to put food on the table, and locally owned businesses are doing everything possible to keep serving people in our communities, even under great duress. Uber is ... Uber/Grubhub: Pandemic Profiteering, Merger Moratoriums, and Rising Concentration … Or Not
The CARES Act and the Tantalizing Promise of a Universal Basic Income
This week, Americans began receiving cold, hard cash from the government. Meant to cushion the economic fallout of Covid-19, the CARES Act provides households with relief payments of up to $1200 per adult and $500 per child. As we have written elsewhere, direct cash transfers are the simplest, least paternalistic, and most efficient way to ... The CARES Act and the Tantalizing Promise of a Universal Basic Income
Flattening the Curve without Squashing Society: Market Responses to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way consumers shop and the way businesses sell. These shifts in behavior, designed to “flatten the curve” of infection through social distancing, are happening across many (if not all) markets. But in many cases, it’s impossible to know now whether these new habits are actually achieving the desired effect. ... Flattening the Curve without Squashing Society: Market Responses to COVID-19
Production and Free Trade in the Wake of Covid-19 – Setting New Trade Trends for Future Economies
At a time when nations are engaged in bidding wars in the worldwide market to alleviate the shortages of critical medical necessities for the Covid-19 crisis, it certainly bares the question, have free trade and competition policies resulting in efficient global integrated market networks gone too far? Did economists and policy makers advocating for efficient ... Production and Free Trade in the Wake of Covid-19 – Setting New Trade Trends for Future Economies
