Showing archive for: “Price Controls & Gouging”
Pump and Circumstance: The Politics of Italy’s Fuel-Price Caps
The Italian government is claiming a victory at the pump. Eni, the country’s largest oil company, has announced a 30-day cap on retail fuel prices. Italy’s second-largest fuel retailer, IP, controlled by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (Socar), followed suit, as did the third-largest, Q8. Smaller rivals warn that the caps could squeeze ... Pump and Circumstance: The Politics of Italy’s Fuel-Price Caps
Rate Expectations: Apple and the New Price Regulators
Competition policy is supposed to protect the competitive process, not do double-duty as price regulation. Yet the line between the two appears to be blurring in both a U.S. antitrust case and the European Union’s enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). On Aug. 14, after years of litigation with Epic Games, Apple submitted a ... Rate Expectations: Apple and the New Price Regulators
A Fee Too Far: Merchants, Surcharges, and the War on Plastic
Earlier this summer, my family took a vacation to Ocean City, Maryland, where the boardwalk offered ice cream, souvenirs, and an unexpected lesson in payment economics. Every retailer we visited added a surcharge of at least 3% for credit-card payments, yet not one posted a sign. I discovered the charges only later, while checking my ... A Fee Too Far: Merchants, Surcharges, and the War on Plastic
Premium, Regular, or Collusive? Brazil’s Aprix Case Tests Algorithmic Pricing
Few antitrust investigations find their theory of harm laid out in the target’s sales brochure. Brazil’s investigation of Aprix, a startup that sells pricing software to gas stations, nearly managed the feat. One of the company’s promotional brochures introduced prospective clients to the prisoner’s dilemma, the classic game-theory example in which individually rational choices can ... Premium, Regular, or Collusive? Brazil’s Aprix Case Tests Algorithmic Pricing
The Crime of Winning: How Europe’s DMA Punishes Google for Competing
Brussels has found a new way to punish success. Today, the European Commission fined Google €890 million under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for two familiar business practices—featuring its own products and charging for customers its platform helps attract. The Commission imposed €460 million for “self-preferencing,” or giving Google’s services prominent placement in search results, ... The Crime of Winning: How Europe’s DMA Punishes Google for Competing
Crisis Opportunism: Germany’s Turn to Antitrust Without Limits
Geopolitical shocks rarely just move markets. They move policy—and not always in good ways. Fuel prices are climbing sharply across Europe following military escalation in the Middle East and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The political demand for “something to be done” can be nearly irresistible. In Germany, several major political groups have ... Crisis Opportunism: Germany’s Turn to Antitrust Without Limits
Borrowed Prices: Pharmaceuticals and the American Tab
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed two sweeping Innovation Center models—the Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing Model (GLOBE) and the Guarding U.S. Medicare Against Rising Drug Costs Model (GUARD)—that would tie Medicare drug payments to prices set by foreign governments. Framed as pragmatic cost-containment tools, the models would import foreign ... Borrowed Prices: Pharmaceuticals and the American Tab
Baby Chicks, Gas Lines, and the War on Prices
The 1970s were a strange time, to put it mildly. Chicken farmers gassed, drowned, and suffocated roughly a million baby chicks. “It’s cheaper to drown ’em than to put ’em down and raise ’em,” one Texas farmer explained. Dairy farmers slaughtered cows. Hog farmers culled breeding stock. Why did any of this happen? Good old ... Baby Chicks, Gas Lines, and the War on Prices
Apple in Brazil: Ex Post Antitrust Meets Ex Ante Ambitions
Brazil’s competition authority (CADE) and Apple signed a Dec. 29 settlement agreement (Termo de Compromisso de Cessação, or TCC) resolving a high-stakes antitrust investigation Mercado Livre initiated in 2022 in Brazil and Mexico. Mercado Livre is Latin America’s leading e-commerce and marketplace platform. The agreement marks a watershed moment for Brazil’s digital economy. CADE will ... Apple in Brazil: Ex Post Antitrust Meets Ex Ante Ambitions
New York’s Failed Economic Case for Price-Gouging Enforcement
A major winter storm across northern New York State in January 1998 snapped power lines and left thousands without electricity, as temperatures plunged. In the small town of Chazy, just south of the Canadian border, a local hardware store stepped up. Chazy Hardware had just one generator on hand, but it managed to locate 54 ... New York’s Failed Economic Case for Price-Gouging Enforcement
Credit-Card Price Controls Are Counter Productive
U.S. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation that would cap credit-card interest rates at 10%, with the claim that it would help poorer Americans. Unfortunately, both economic theory and centuries of evidence demonstrate that the effect would be quite the opposite. When the government sets a ceiling on the ... Credit-Card Price Controls Are Counter Productive
US Biomedical Leadership Threatened by NIH Licensing Guidelines
New licensing guidelines issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at the end of the Biden administration could undermine American innovation in the biomedical field—a sector in which the United States has long been the world leader. In a period of growing international competition, including threats from China, the Trump administration may want to ... US Biomedical Leadership Threatened by NIH Licensing Guidelines
