If you could wave a magic wand and fix one modern ill, what would it be? Inequality? Pollution? Intergenerational unfairness? The decline of the high street? Suburban ennui? What if you didn’t have to pick, because there was one social problem that lay at the root of all of them?

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Law and technology overlap in many ways, but scholars and regulators tend to focus on incompatibilities between the two. I propose that they also explore synergies between law and tech, and address frictions in a way that preserves them. This exploration should begin with blockchain and antitrust.

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Abstract

Commentators have likened the recent surge in social-media-driven (SMD) retail trading in securities such as GameStop to a roller coaster: “You don’t go on a roller coaster because you end up in a different place, you go on it for the ride and it’s exciting because you’re part of it.” The price charts for GameStop over the past few months resemble a theme-park thrill ride. Retail traders, led by some members of the “WallStreetBets” subreddit “got on” the GameStop roller coaster at just under $20 a share in early January 2021 and rode it to almost $500 by the end of that month. Prices then dropped to around $30 dollars in February before shooting back to $200 in March. But, like most amusement park rides that end where they start, many analysts expect market forces will ultimately prevail, and GameStop’s share price will soon settle back to levels closer to what the company’s fundamentals suggest it should. Conventional wisdom counsels that bubbles driven by little more than noise and FOMO—fear of missing out—should eventually burst. There are, however, signs suggesting that something more than market noise and over-exuberance is sustaining the SMD retail trading in GameStop.

There is evidence that at least some of the recent SMD retail trading in GameStop and other securities is not only motivated by the desire to make a profit, but rather to make a point. This Essay identifies and addresses the emerging phenomenon of “expressive trading”—securities trading for the purpose of political, social, or aesthetic expression—and considers some of its implications for issuers, markets, and regulators.

In policy discussions about the digital economy, a background assumption that frequently underlies the discourse is that intermediaries and centralization always and only serve as a cost to consumers, and to society more generally. Thus, one commonly sees arguments that consumers would be better off if they could freely combine products from different trading partners. According to this logic, bundled goods, walled gardens, and other intermediaries are always to be regarded with suspicion, while interoperability, open source, and decentralization are laudable features of any market.

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Early last month, the Italian competition authority issued a record 1.128 billion euro fine against Amazon for abuse of dominance under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In its order, the Agenzia Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) essentially argues that Amazon has combined its Amazon.it marketplace and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) services to exclude logistics rivals such as FedEx, DHL, UPS, and Poste Italiane.

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Abstract

The authors have developed an algorithm to quantify the number of statutes within the U.S. Code that create one or more federal crimes. As of 2019, we found 1,510 statutes that create at least one crime. This represents an increase of nearly 36 percent relative to the 1,111 statutes that created at least one crime in 1994. Although the algorithm cannot precisely count discrete crimes within sections, we estimate the number of crimes contained within the Code as of 2019 at 5,199. These findings support the conclusion that the number of federal crimes has increased, while also bolstering concerns that federal crimes are too diffuse, too numerous, and too vague for the average citizen to know what the law requires.

Abstract

Among the numerous legislative initiatives implemented around the globe on digital platforms, some of these provisions are explicitly directed towards app stores. As they have all the distinctive features of multi-sided markets, app store owners represent the prototype of digital gatekeepers, controlling access to mobile ecosystems and competing with business users operating on the platforms. In light of the rule-setting and dual role of these gateway players, regulatory interventions are required in order to ensure that large app stores are treated like common carriers or public utilities, thereby imposing upon them a neutrality regime vis-à-vis new entrants. For the very same reasons, dominant app store providers have been subject to an increasing number of antitrust investigations attempting to ensure equal treatment and to avoid self-preferencing at the expense of rivals’ services. Against this background, the article investigates whether antitrust provisions are flexible enough to curb anti-competitive practices carried out by app stores and the extent to which regulatory interventions could, on the other hand, be necessary in order to address the seemingly unique features of the app economy.

As a new year dawns, the Biden administration remains fixated on illogical, counterproductive “big is bad” nostrums.

Noted economist and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers correctly stressed recently that using antitrust to fight inflation represents “science denial,” tweeting that…

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In a turf war between federal agencies that could prove deeply disruptive to travelers, the Federal Aviation Administration is threatening to ground planes if the Federal Communications Commission allows wireless carriers to begin operating in the C-band spectrum this week.

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