🚨 New paper in Economics Letters!

Do mergers boost or harm innovation? The debate is heating up in EU & UK policy circles.

Some argue:
Relax merger control → more investment, productivity, competitiveness.
This view has influenced reports like Draghi’s & UK gov’t policy.
But is it right? 🤔

Call for papers, 4th UK Workshop on Digital Economics, London 28 November 2025: competitionpolicy.ac.uk/events/4th-w... This is always a great event

🚨Free data alert!! 🚨 Please share.

Large new dataset of Amazon product reviews, including full text and photos and product characteristics, with individual *reviews labeled as fake reviews*.

I believe this is the first publicly available data of this kind.

github.com/bretthollenb...

New paper just accepted in the Antitrust Law Journal written with John Kwoka.

We study the policy toward consummated mergers that prove to be anticompetitive, both in theoretical and empirical terms.

1/2

⭐Join us online for a high-level debate on merger control in Europe
Featuring E Tarantino, S Athey, @janeeckhout.bsky.social, P Heidhues, F Ederer, @tomasoduso.bsky.social
Moderator: @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social
14 July @ 17:00 CEST
cepr.org/events/updat...
@tomvalletti.bsky.social

I’ve written this piece in The Times.

Competition should work for the many, not the few.

Video of this remarkable webinar now available online:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7e5...

Designing “Buy European” Policies for European Strategic Autonomy - 15 Apr @ 17:00 CEST

🗣️@snoep.bsky.social, D Harhoff, U Akcigit, G Spagnolo, B Baltzan, @schularick.bsky.social

@sandertordoir.bsky.social @tomvalletti.bsky.social @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social

cepr.org/events/desig...
#EconSky

🚨 !Paper alert! 🚨
Do you like books? Then read our new paper on price and non-price effects of regulation in the market for books! With
@cgenakos.bsky.social, Mario Pagliero & Lorien Sabatino.

What’s the paper about? 🧵

Antitrust "technocrats have failed...and they're defending their job" @tomvalletti.bsky.social youtu.be/e7Unsy3jgbA - not talking about the DMA 😉

Very interesting JMP from Jie Zhou (MIT) who's on the job market

So relevant given today’s discussion in EU on how protect from further digital colonisation while spurring native innovation

Context:
China Great Firewall: China blocked foreign apps and regulated the internet (for political reasons)

Looking at the US presidential inauguration, the link between market power and political power has never been so evident.

If you also found that very striking, please read our blog with Bo Cowgill and Andrea Prat
corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/02/06/p...

My predictions for European antitrust in 2025 (EU + UK), as well as those by Marco Botta, Justus Haucap and Stefan Thomas

www.promarket.org/2025/01/14/t...

Revised version of our paper with Bo Cowgill and Andrea Prat just out.

We document how mergers in the US are followed by large and persistent increases in lobbying activity. Firms with market power also try to gain political power.

www.nber.org/papers/w33255

Sir John Vickers gave a keynote at ACE. His views on the UK Vodafone/Three merger - see the images.

Knowing Sir John, who’s the epitome of moderation, this is quite some scathing criticism directed to the Competition and Markets Authority proposed flawed approach.

Is there still time to re-think?

IS COMPETITION POLICY DEAD?

Probably moribund, as I argue here