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.

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The California State Legislature is considering amendments to the state’s antitrust laws that would enable more stringent antitrust scrutiny of technology companies, particularly so-called “Big Tech.” A preliminary report on single-firm conduct authored by a group of experts recruited by the California Law Revision Commission suggests this could be achieved by mimicking several features of European competition law. Unfortunately, this “Europeanization” of Californian antitrust law would benefit neither California’s economy nor its consumers.

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The Federal Trade Commission has shifted focus in recent months away from its traditional goal of protecting consumers and toward one of protecting workers instead. Most recently, the agency issued a rule that would ban essentially all noncompete agreements in employment contracts. The rule would forbid new noncompetes, and in existing contracts, only noncompetes covering senior executives would remain enforceable.

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Competition is the driving force behind the success of markets. It’s hard to imagine a thriving market economy without the presence of competitive forces.

But how do we actually measure competition? I use the term all the time, but do we actually have a measure of it? This question is more complex than it may seem at first glance.

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced late last month that it had “expanded its campaign against pharmaceutical manufacturers’ improper or inaccurate listing of patents in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Orange Book, disputing junk patent listings for diabetes, weight loss, asthma,and COPD drugs, including Novo Nordisk Inc.’s blockbuster weight-loss drug, Ozempic.” Warning letters were sent to 10 manufacturers, including, among others, Teva (identifying 58 listings), Novo Nordisk (36 listings), and Boehringer Ingelheim (10 listings).

The commission “notified the FDA that it disputes the accuracy or relevance of more than 300 Orange Book patent listings across 20 different brand name products.” That expands on the 100-plus patents listed in the November 2023 warning letters that the FTC sent to an overlapping group of manufacturers.

That’s quite a few challenges. Reading through the FTC’s press release and warning letters, it’s not really clear what’s going on here. More frolic and detour on the part of Chair Lina Khan’s FTC, or a legitimate effort to protect competition in pharmaceutical markets?

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In my research and newsletters, I’ve written about how to interpret markups—mostly on the theory side. I haven’t devoted much space explaining the empirics. How high are markups in the United States? Are they rising? If so, by how much?

This post seeks to answer those questions. I’m writing it after reading a new paper by Nathan Miller on “Industrial Organization and The Rise of Market Power,” which is the most recent literature review. Miller focuses primarily on the markup literature from an industrial-organization (IO) perspective. I’ll have more to say about that later. The paper helped me gather my thoughts, but the interpretations and arguments below are all mine. So read this post, and then read Miller.

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For six generations, Hermès has epitomized French luxury, making and selling its iconic scarves, belts, jewelry, and, of course, handbags. Some Hermès products, including its Birkin and Kelly bags, are so exclusive that they can’t be bought off the shelf. Customers first have to establish a relationship with the house to purchase these specialty bags. One way to do this is by buying other Hermès products.

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Go big or go home, they say. It’s not really an either-or choice: one can go big, and then go home. Not infrequently, an attempt to go big is what gets one sent home.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) swung for the fences in April 23’s open meeting. On purely partisan lines, the commission voted 3-2 to adopt a competition regulation that bans the use of noncompete agreements (NCAs) across much of the U.S. economy. With a few small wrinkles, it’s just what the FTC had proposed to do—also by a purely partisan vote—in its January 2023 notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM).

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In an April 17 address to United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, President Joe Biden vowed that his administration would “thwart the acquisition of U.S. Steel by a Japanese company,” Nippon Steel, telling the assembled union members that U.S. Steel “has been an iconic American company for more than a century and it should remain totally American.”

Aside from the impropriety of apparently prejudging a proposed combination currently under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ), would blocking this merger make any sense on national security or economic grounds? The answer is no.

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