Antitrust Law

Not All Network Effects Are Red Flags: A Simple Screen for Digital Vertical Mergers

Johannes Johnen and Shiva Shekhar

This paper proposes a simple yet useful framework for evaluating vertical mergers in digital markets by distinguishing between product-specific and ecosystem-specific network effects.

Killers and keepersGuarding the gatekeepersEconomists at the bar

Keeper Acquisitions: What Big Tech Keeps When It Buys

Selçukhan Ünekbas

The “killer acquisition” hypothesis dominates debate on technology mergers, asking whether large firms buy startups to eliminate them. But the more revealing question is what acquirers keep.

Killers and keepersGuarding the gatekeepers

Dominance in Motion: A practical R&D-intensity test for dynamic markets

Jorge Padilla

In innovation-driven markets, a market share records who is ahead; it does not reveal how hard that firm must work to remain ahead. A dominance assessment should therefore examine the incumbent’s innovation effort and the…

Markets in motionEconomists at the bar

The Law and Economics of Superior Bargaining Power

Giuseppe Colangelo

The abuse of economic dependence has attracted renewed attention, largely as a result of the growing policy focus on fairness in digital markets.

Guarding the gatekeepersWhat is antitrust for?Dominance, abused?

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Assessing the Draft EU Merger Guidelines

Jorge Padilla

This paper assesses the European Commission’s draft Merger Guidelines against the treatment of efficiencies, the failing firm defence, and the counterfactual in the 2004 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2008 Non-Horizontal…

Killers and keepersEconomists at the bar

A Farewell to Net Neutrality: Implications for Internet Access and E-Commerce

Daniel F. Spulber

I consider legal decisions resulting in the end of the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality regulation. There is evidence that net neutrality regulation has diminished incentives to invest in internet access and…

Guarding the gatekeepersEconomists at the barCases in point

Antitrust Antidote: April-June 2026

Jeremy Kauffman, Jeremy Sandford, Nathan Wilson and Koren W. Wong-Ervin

There were a number of significant decisions from April through June 2026, including: (1) the Eastern District of California’s preliminary injunction in In re Nexstar-Tegna Merger Litigation, requiring hold-separate relief…

Economists at the barCases in point

Innovation on Rugged Technological Landscapes: Implications for Competition Policy

Steven Callander, Nicolas Lambert and Niko Matouschek

Digital and technology markets are often analyzed as if innovation moves along a smooth path. We describe an alternative view: innovation unfolds on rugged technological landscapes, where firms learn from prior successes and…

Markets in motionEconomists at the barThe edge of chaos

Latin Antitrust Chronicles: September 2025-March 2026

Carlos Ragazzo, Marcela Mattiuzzo, Bruna Cataldo and Clara Duarte

This edition of the Latin Antitrust Chronicles provides an overview of the main developments that took place in late 2025 and early 2026 across Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

Cases in pointBeyond Brussels and Washington

Antitrust Antidote: January-March 2026

Jeremy Kauffman, Jeremy Sandford, Nathan Wilson and Koren W. Wong-Ervin

There were a number of decisions from January through March 2026, including: (1) the Ninth Circuit’s decision in AliveCor v. Apple, holding that Apple’s alleged refusal to continue sharing certain data with third-party app…

Economists at the barCases in point

Introducing Dynamic Competition in the Middle East

Jason Potts

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is the most ambitious economic transformation program in the world today, yet it is widely misunderstood in the West.

Markets in motionEconomists at the barBeyond Brussels and Washington

Competition Stories: July 2025 – December 2025

Mario Siragusa, Alice Setari, Francesco Trombetta and Alberto Galasso

EU competition law enforcement rests on a multilevel architecture: the Commission and national competition authorities share responsibility for applying Articles 101 and 102 TFEU.

Cases in point

Fairness and Redistribution in Antitrust Law

Herbert Hovenkamp

Many parts of the legal system are devoted to promoting “fair” outcomes in the distribution of wealth or economic status. Antitrust law is not among them.

What is antitrust for?

The world’s most downloaded antitrust articles of 2025

Network Law Review

As in previous years (see 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024), here are the world’s most downloaded antitrust and competition law (related) articles posted on SSRN during the course of 2025.

The Enigmas of Monopoly Power

Herbert Hovenkamp

Market power can be assessed in antitrust cases by two methods often described as “alternatives”. For unilateral conduct, however, they are inconsistent.

What is antitrust for?Dominance, abused?

Revisiting Antitrust in the Age of Great-Powers Competition

Jonathan M. Barnett

US antitrust law has traditionally paid little attention to global competitiveness and industrial policy objectives. This reflects a commitment to enabling the free play of competitive forces to determine market outcomes and an…

What is antitrust for?The great game

AI, Data, And Leveraging Strategies: Implications For Antitrust

Erik Hovenkamp

In product markets that rely heavily on artificial intelligence (AI), firms both use data and generate data. For a multiproduct firm, the data generated by one product will often have spillover benefits on the firm’s other…

Machines in the marketGuarding the gatekeepersWhat is antitrust for?

Antitrust and Great Powers Rivalry

Daniel Crane

“Great nations” rivalry includes all aspects of economic rivalry, so it is natural that the great nations consider antitrust a weapon in their arsenals, particularly in areas such as military, technology, culture, and finance.

What is antitrust for?The great game

Industrial Policy and Competitiveness: Non-Tariff Barriers and Incentives to Innovate

Daniel F. Spulber

Countries use non-tariff barriers (NTBs) as instruments of industrial policy. NTBs often are difficult to observe and hard to adjust because they are part of national regulations. NTBs are inflexible in comparison to tariffs.

What is antitrust for?Economists at the barThe great game

Special Issue: Industrial Policy and Competitiveness

Thibault Schrepel and Dirk Auer

Industrial policy is back in fashion. Governments in the United States, Europe, and China increasingly deploy subsidies, trade restrictions, and regulations to promote domestic champions and secure supply chains.

What is antitrust for?The great game

Competition Stories: January 2025 – June 2025

Mario Siragusa, Alice Setari, Francesco Trombetta and Neri Conti

On April 23, 2025, the Commission once again made headlines with multi-million-euro fines on two Tech giants: EUR 500 million for Apple and EUR 200 million for Meta. Yet this time was different.

Cases in point

Antitrust Antidote: June-September 2025

Koren W. Wong-Ervin, Jeremy Sandford and Nathan Wilson

There were a number of decisions from June through September 2025 including: (1) a fifth recent decision (U.S. et al. v. Apple) refusing to apply the more defense-friendly refusal-to-deal standard; (2) yet another lower court…

Economists at the barCases in point

The U.S. Supreme Court and the Merger Efficiency “Defense”

Herbert Hovenkamp

Firms’ principal motives for merging are not to increase market power, but rather to improve firm outcomes through changes in internal operations or structure.

Killers and keepersCases in point

The Counterintuitive Economics of Default Positions

Yongmin Chen and Marius Schwartz

Which supplier should control the default slot on digital devices? We analyze alternative ways to assign the default position for digital goods like search engines.

Guarding the gatekeepersEconomists at the bar

Computational Antitrust: Evidence From 25 Antitrust Agencies

Thibault Schrepel

This paper explores patterns from the Stanford Computational Antitrust project’s fourth annual report, which includes contributions from 25 agencies worldwide.

Machines in the marketAntitrust, computedBeyond Brussels and Washington

Antitrust Antidote: March-June 2025

Nathan Wilson and Koren W. Wong-Ervin

There were a number of decisions from March through June 2025 including: (1) a Ninth Circuit win by Microsoft and Activision in the FTC’s suit challenging the vertical integration between the two companies; (2) two district court…

Economists at the barCases in point

Neo-Brandeisianism: A Policy at War With Itself

Thomas A. Lambert

“Neo-Brandeisian” scholars contend that prevailing antitrust law fails to protect democratic values. They propose (1) replacing antitrust’s consumer welfare standard with a multi-goaled approach and (2) embracing ex-ante conduct…

What is antitrust for?

Fueling Concentration: AI Agents and Network Effects

Raz Agranat and Michal S. Gal

AI agents lie at the frontier of the evolving AI economy, functioning as applications that autonomously execute tasks on users’ behalf. While contemporary discourse on market concentration in AI ecosystems predominantly focuses…

Machines in the market

Antitrust Antidote: January-March 2025

Jeremy Sandford and Koren W. Wong-Ervin

There were a number of decisions from January through March 2025, including (1) a motion to dismiss the decision in the Apple iCloud case involving issues such as “negative tying” arrangements, single-brand aftermarkets, and…

Economists at the barCases in point

Latin Antitrust Chronicles: October 2024 – February 2025

Bruna Cataldo, Carlos Ragazzo and Marcela Mattiuzzo

This overview highlights the Brazilian competition authority’s investigations into issues related to human resources– CADE launched two new investigations in late 2024– as well as some of the key takeaways from the OECD’s Latin…

Cases in pointBeyond Brussels and Washington

Antitrust’s Forensic Tools

Herbert Hovenkamp

Most areas of law enforcement require investigative tools to provide evidence of violations and harm. Antitrust law’s single-minded focus on prices, output, and innovation explains its selection of economic tools.

Antitrust, computedCases in point

The Vestager Years: A Data-Driven Assessment

Thibault Schrepel

Teresa Ribera assumed the role of EU Commissioner for Competition just a couple of weeks ago on December 1, 2024. As a new chapter in EU competition law begins, Janneke Parrish and I present an empirical analysis of Margrethe…

Guarding the gatekeepersAntitrust, computed

Rising Market Power: Evidence from Industry Studies

Nathan H. Miller

As an economist who does research in industrial organization (IO)—a field defined in part by its focus on market power—the emergence of evidence pointing to significant increases in market power among firms in the United States…

What is antitrust for?Antitrust, computedEconomists at the bar

A Framework for Assessing the Competitiveness of AI Partnerships

Thibault Schrepel

The year 2024 marked a pivotal moment as antitrust agencies accelerated their efforts in generative AI (see our database). AI partnerships have drawn significant attention in the space, with the CMA, DOJ, European Commission, and…

Machines in the market

The world’s most downloaded antitrust articles of 2024

Network Law Review

As in previous years (see 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023), here are the world’s most downloaded antitrust and competition law articles posted on SSRN during 2024.

Antitrust Antidote: October-December 2024

Nathan Wilson and Koren W. Wong-Ervin

There were a number of decisions from October-December 2024, including: Given the incoming Trump Administration and the possibility that the 2023 Merger Guidelines will be revised (and perhaps significantly), it is particularly…

Economists at the barCases in point

From Theory to Practice: Computing ‘Innovation Competition’ in Antitrust

Teodora Groza

This short piece serves as an introduction to Thibault Schrepel & Teodora Groza’s working paper entitled “Computing Innovation Competition” available here.

Antitrust, computed

Big Tech Acquisitions And The Ghost Products

Axel Gautier

Over the last two decades, the largest digital platforms have experienced incredible growth, reaching millions of users, developing many new products and technologies, and collecting enormous profits.

Killers and keepersGuarding the gatekeepersEconomists at the bar

How IP Rights Create Competition in E-commerce​

Herbert Hovenkamp

In the offline economy, IP was often seen as creating or protecting monopoly; in online commerce it frequently makes competition possible.

Guarding the gatekeepers

Antitrust Antidote: June-September 2024

Jeremy Sandford and Koren W. Wong-Ervin

In re: NFL “Sunday Ticket” Antitrust Litig. (C.D.Cal August 2024) Classes of commercial and residential subscribers to NFL Sunday Ticket sued the NFL and its teams, asserting antitrust harm relating to the NFL’s bundling of…

Economists at the barCases in point