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

I’ve written this piece in The Times.

Competition should work for the many, not the few.

Not really. We also find that the *variety* of books purchased by readers went up. Books that had a near-zero market share before FBP... started being purchased afterwards.

So there is a possible trade-off! 4/

Indeed, comparing with the same Italian books sold in Switzerland at the time (Italian is an official language there too! And there is no regulation of books in CH), final prices to readers went up, especially among independent bookshops that are very common in ITA.

End of the story? 3/

🚨 !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? 🧵

Result:
Large increase in Chinese apps and innovation in China

And also:
Large increase of Chinese apps in *foreign* Asian countries

There is much more in her paper. You can read it here 👇
dropbox.com/scl/fi/b0i5w...

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)

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