January 12, 2022
Intermediaries: The Hero We Need?
Intermediaries may not be the consumer welfare hero we want, but more often than not, they are one that we need. In policy discussions about the digital economy, a background…
Resources
January 11, 2022
Amazon Italy’s Efficiency Offense
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).…
January 5, 2022
Crusade Against ‘Big Meat’ Is Latest Example of Misguided Effort to Use Antitrust as Anti-Inflation Tool
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…
December 22, 2021
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…
December 19, 2021
Amid COVID, Insurance Regulation Remains Profitable
The COVID-19 pandemic hit state budgets particularly hard in 2020, with a $24.11 billion drop in tax revenue collected from 2019’s levels. But analysis of National Association of Insurance Commissioners…
December 15, 2021
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…
December 15, 2021
FTC Statement of Regulatory Priorities: Storm Clouds Are Looming
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) appears committed—at least, for the moment—to a path of regulatory overreach. The commission’s Dec. 10 Statement of Regulatory Priorities (SRP) offers, in addition to a periodic review…
December 14, 2021
tl;dr – Rail Reciprocal-Switching Mandates
Background… Since taking office, the Biden administration has moved aggressively to use enforcement actions and rulemakings—many of them outlined in the administration’s July 2021 executive order—ostensibly as a means to…
December 10, 2021
Italy’s Google and Apple Decisions: Regulatory Paternalism and Overenforcement
The Autorità Garante della Concorenza e del Mercato (AGCM), Italy’s competition and consumer-protection watchdog, on Nov. 25 handed down fines against Google and Apple of €10 million each—the maximum penalty contemplated by…