Economic Analysis and Competition Policy Research

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Image: Flying Elvises from Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)
If I had a dollar for every New York Times business story that attributed an industry-wide price hike in the post-Covid era to an outward shift in demand—that is, a story that blamed consumers for higher prices—I’d have, like, 25 dollars. Since the post-Covid era, the Times in particular, and the mainstream business press in... Read More
Image: Google’s AI Overview occupies all of the above-the-fold area on a mobile display.
Google’s August 2024 launch of AI Overviews has reshaped online search and upended the original bargain between publishers and Google. Google places its own AI Overviews at the top of its search results pages, providing the user with a synthesised answer to the query. That answer is provided by Gemini, Google’s large language model (LLM),... Read More
Image: Uber and Lyft drivers rally for batter pay and working conditions at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin. (Jay Janner/AP)
We are at a crossroads today in American law. It’s not just about Trump and his cronies clearing out the agencies that keep consumers, workers, and everyday people safe from corporate abuse. It’s not just about Trump refusing to enforce safeguards for corporate accountability—or worse, weaponizing them against working families. It’s also about the many... Read More
Image: A courtroom sketch of Judge Amit Mehta on the bench. ILLUSTRATION: DANA VERKOUTEREN; AP
After nearly five years of intense litigation, the landmark United States v. Google antitrust trial is finally over. Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled last fall that Google illegally monopolized internet search for more than a decade by paying smartphone makers, wireless carriers, and web browsers to be the default—and sometimes exclusive—search engine for users. The... Read More
Image: Google CEO Sundar Pichai departs federal court in Washington, D.C. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Antitrust restructuring of major corporations is on the table in a way it has not been since the Microsoft case in the late 1990s. Indeed, the historic moment may be comparable to the breakup of Standard Oil in the 1910s and AT&T in the 1980s, when courts reorganized those companies and freed the market from... Read More
Image: Prior authorization is a nightmare for patients and doctors. Photo: Enrique Guzmán Egas on Unsplash
On December 3, 2024, Chris Salinas officially entered a nightmare that would make Freddy Krueger proud—a nightmare in the medical industry known as prior authorization. Even I, as his gastroenterologist, didn’t know at the time that this one would become my biggest nightmare yet. Chris has given me permission to share the details of his... Read More
Image: “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" during Monday's July 15, 2024 show. CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images
There is much discussion about what Hal Singer has dubbed “Gangster Antitrust,” the extraction of payments, bribes, or other concessions to allow passage of an otherwise anticompetitive merger. Gangster Antitrust can also take the form of conditioning the approval of a procompetitive merger on a seemingly unrelated remedy that advances the political interests of the... Read More
Image: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg derive the vast majority of their wealth from dominant firms in their respective sectors.
The wealthiest man in the world was President Trump’s largest campaign contributor, thirteen billionaires were selected for positions in the administration, and the fourth wealthiest man in the world announced that the third largest newspaper in the country would no longer publish any opinion pieces critical of free markets. As if this weren’t an already... Read More
Image: Union Pacific seeks to merger with Norfolk Southern. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Railroad mergers haven’t happened in a while, and that’s a good thing. During the Reagan era, the country witnessed a rapid consolidation of its railroad industry. In the two decades following the 1980 Staggers Rail Act, the number of Class 1 freight railroads in the country fell from 39 to seven. The new millennium saw... Read More
Image: Review of Wang’s Breakneck (W.W. Norton 2025)
In a live discussion on Substack in June with Derek Thompson, neoliberal pundit Noah Smith called Dan Wang’s Breakneck a “companion volume” to Thompson’s and Klein’s recent bestseller Abundance. Wang is slated to speak at the upcoming Abundance 2025 conference, which is headlined by Klein and Thompson. Given the furious fight between the abundance faction... Read More
Image: Flying Elvises from Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)
If I had a dollar for every New York Times business story that attributed an industry-wide price hike in the post-Covid era to an outward shift in demand—that is, a story that blamed consumers for higher prices—I’d have, like, 25 dollars. Since the post-Covid era, the Times in particular, and the mainstream business press in... Read More

Google’s August 2024 launch of AI Overviews has reshaped online search and upended the original bargain between publishers and Google. Google places its own AI Overviews at the top of its search results pages, providing the user with a synthesised answer to the query. That answer is provided by Gemini, Google’s large language model (LLM),... Read More

Image: Google’s AI Overview occupies all of the above-the-fold area on a mobile display.

We are at a crossroads today in American law. It’s not just about Trump and his cronies clearing out the agencies that keep consumers, workers, and everyday people safe from corporate abuse. It’s not just about Trump refusing to enforce safeguards for corporate accountability—or worse, weaponizing them against working families. It’s also about the many... Read More

Image: Uber and Lyft drivers rally for batter pay and working conditions at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin. (Jay Janner/AP)

After nearly five years of intense litigation, the landmark United States v. Google antitrust trial is finally over. Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled last fall that Google illegally monopolized internet search for more than a decade by paying smartphone makers, wireless carriers, and web browsers to be the default—and sometimes exclusive—search engine for users. The... Read More

Image: A courtroom sketch of Judge Amit Mehta on the bench. ILLUSTRATION: DANA VERKOUTEREN; AP

Antitrust restructuring of major corporations is on the table in a way it has not been since the Microsoft case in the late 1990s. Indeed, the historic moment may be comparable to the breakup of Standard Oil in the 1910s and AT&T in the 1980s, when courts reorganized those companies and freed the market from... Read More

Image: Google CEO Sundar Pichai departs federal court in Washington, D.C. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On December 3, 2024, Chris Salinas officially entered a nightmare that would make Freddy Krueger proud—a nightmare in the medical industry known as prior authorization. Even I, as his gastroenterologist, didn’t know at the time that this one would become my biggest nightmare yet. Chris has given me permission to share the details of his... Read More

Image: Prior authorization is a nightmare for patients and doctors. Photo: Enrique Guzmán Egas on Unsplash

There is much discussion about what Hal Singer has dubbed “Gangster Antitrust,” the extraction of payments, bribes, or other concessions to allow passage of an otherwise anticompetitive merger. Gangster Antitrust can also take the form of conditioning the approval of a procompetitive merger on a seemingly unrelated remedy that advances the political interests of the... Read More

Image: “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" during Monday's July 15, 2024 show. CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images

The wealthiest man in the world was President Trump’s largest campaign contributor, thirteen billionaires were selected for positions in the administration, and the fourth wealthiest man in the world announced that the third largest newspaper in the country would no longer publish any opinion pieces critical of free markets. As if this weren’t an already... Read More

Image: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg derive the vast majority of their wealth from dominant firms in their respective sectors.

Railroad mergers haven’t happened in a while, and that’s a good thing. During the Reagan era, the country witnessed a rapid consolidation of its railroad industry. In the two decades following the 1980 Staggers Rail Act, the number of Class 1 freight railroads in the country fell from 39 to seven. The new millennium saw... Read More

Image: Union Pacific seeks to merger with Norfolk Southern. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS

In a live discussion on Substack in June with Derek Thompson, neoliberal pundit Noah Smith called Dan Wang’s Breakneck a “companion volume” to Thompson’s and Klein’s recent bestseller Abundance. Wang is slated to speak at the upcoming Abundance 2025 conference, which is headlined by Klein and Thompson. Given the furious fight between the abundance faction... Read More

Image: Review of Wang’s Breakneck (W.W. Norton 2025)

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