Showing archive for: “UK”
AI Partnerships and Competition: Much Ado About Nothing?
Competition policymakers around the world have been expressing concerns about competition in emerging artificial-intelligence (AI) industries, with some taking steps to investigate them further. These fears are notably fueled by a sense that incumbent (albeit, in adjacent markets) digital platforms may use strategic partnerships with AI firms to stave off competition from this fast-growing field. ... AI Partnerships and Competition: Much Ado About Nothing?
Latin America Should Follow Its Own Path on Digital-Markets Competition
In order to promote competition in digital markets,[1] Latin American countries should not copy and paste “solutions” from other jurisdictions, but rather design their own set of policies. In short, Latin American countries—like my own, Peru—should not “put the cart before the horse” and regulate markets that are not yet mature. Digital or “tech” markets ... Latin America Should Follow Its Own Path on Digital-Markets Competition
Your Definitive End-of-Year Global Tech Regulation Wrap-Up: Who’s Doing What, Where, and What to Make of It
As 2023 draws to a close, we wanted to reflect on a year that saw jurisdictions around the world proposing, debating, and (occasionally) enacting digital regulations. Some of these initiatives amended existing ex-post competition laws. Others were more ambitious, contemplating entirely new regulatory regimes from the ground up. With everything going on, it can be ... Your Definitive End-of-Year Global Tech Regulation Wrap-Up: Who’s Doing What, Where, and What to Make of It
The Case Against Self-Preferencing as a New Antitrust Offense
The practice of so-called “self-preferencing” has come to embody the zeitgeist of competition policy for digital markets, as legislative initiatives are undertaken in jurisdictions around the world that to seek, in various ways, to constrain large digital platforms from granting favorable treatment to their own goods and services. The core concern cited by policymakers is ... The Case Against Self-Preferencing as a New Antitrust Offense
The Four Ways of Spending Data
In Free to Choose, Milton Friedman famously noted that there are four ways to spend money[1]: Spending your own money on yourself. For example, buying groceries or lunch. There is a strong incentive to economize and to get full value. Spending your own money on someone else. For example, buying a gift for another. There ... The Four Ways of Spending Data
The Market Challenge to Populist Antitrust
The wave of populist antitrust that has been embraced by regulators and legislators in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and other jurisdictions rests on the assumption that currently dominant platforms occupy entrenched positions that only government intervention can dislodge. Following this view, Facebook will forever dominate social networking, Amazon will forever dominate cloud ... The Market Challenge to Populist Antitrust
Merger Control’s Misaligned Incentives
Antitrust policymakers around the world have taken a page out of the Silicon Valley playbook and decided to “move fast and break things.” While the slogan is certainly catchy, applying it to the policymaking world is unfortunate and, ultimately, threatens to harm consumers. Several antitrust authorities in recent months have announced their intention to block ... Merger Control’s Misaligned Incentives
Oldie-but-Baddie: The Revival of an Antitrust ‘Efficiencies Offense’?
Recent antitrust forays on both sides of the Atlantic have unfortunate echoes of the oldie-but-baddie “efficiencies offense” that once plagued American and European merger analysis (and, more broadly, reflected a “big is bad” theory of antitrust). After a very short overview of the history of merger efficiencies analysis under American and European competition law, we ... Oldie-but-Baddie: The Revival of an Antitrust ‘Efficiencies Offense’?
Online Display Advertising: What’s the relevant market?
Digital advertising is the economic backbone of the Internet. It allows websites and apps to monetize their userbase without having to charge them fees, while the emergence of targeted ads allows this to be accomplished affordably and with less wasted time wasted. This advertising is facilitated by intermediaries using the “adtech stack,” through which advertisers ... Online Display Advertising: What’s the relevant market?
A Coasean Analysis of Offensive Speech
Words can wound. They can humiliate, anger, insult. University students—or, at least, a vociferous minority of them—are keen to prevent this injury by suppressing offensive speech. To ensure campuses are safe places, they militate for the cancellation of talks by speakers with opinions they find offensive, often successfully. And they campaign to get offensive professors ... A Coasean Analysis of Offensive Speech
Dynamic Merger Efficiencies: The Case of Pharmaceutical Markets
The recent launch of the international Multilateral Pharmaceutical Merger Task Force (MPMTF) is just the latest example of burgeoning cooperative efforts by leading competition agencies to promote convergence in antitrust enforcement. (See my recent paper on the globalization of antitrust, which assesses multinational cooperation and convergence initiatives in greater detail.) In what is a first, ... Dynamic Merger Efficiencies: The Case of Pharmaceutical Markets
The Virtues and Pitfalls of Economic Models
Interrogations concerning the role that economic theory should play in policy decisions are nothing new. Milton Friedman famously drew a distinction between “positive” and “normative” economics, notably arguing that theoretical models were valuable, despite their unrealistic assumptions. Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu’s highly theoretical work on General Equilibrium Theory is widely acknowledged as one of ... The Virtues and Pitfalls of Economic Models
