Using dozens of vivid examples to show how society overprescribed competition as a solution and when unbridled rivalry hurts consumers, kills entrepreneurship, and increases economic inequality, two free-market thinkers diagnose the sickness caused by competition overdose and provide remedies that will promote sustainable growth and progress for everyone, not just wealthy shareholders and those at the top.
Whatever illness our society suffers, competition is the remedy. Do we want better schools for our children? Cheaper prices for everything? More choices in the marketplace? The answer is always: Increase competition.
Yet, many of us are unhappy with the results. We think we’re paying less, but we’re getting much less. Our food has undeclared additives (or worse), our drinking water contains toxic chemicals, our hotel bills reveal surprise additions, our kids’ schools are failing, our activities are tracked so that advertisers can target us with relentless promotions. All will be cured, we are told, by increasing the competitive pressure and defanging the bloated regulatory state.
In a captivating exposé, Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi show how we are falling prey to greed, chicanery, and cronyism. Refuting the almost religious belief in rivalry as the vehicle for prosperity, the authors identify the powerful corporations, lobbyists, and lawmakers responsible for pushing this toxic competition—and argue instead for a healthier, even nobler, form of competition.
Competition Overdose diagnoses the disease—and provides a cure for it.
The book was listed as one of Inc. Magazine top business books you need to read in 2020 and one of Publishers Weekly Top 10 Business & Economics books for Spring 2020.
The prevalence of third-party tracking in our modern ecosystem cannot be ignored. Trackers, on our websites and apps, enable multi-sourced data gathering, at distinct volume, velocity, verity and veracity. While operated by numerous operators, the majority of these trackers are controlled by a handful of data giants. In this paper we consider the rise and growth of this industry, the power it has bestowed on a handful of operators, and the possible implications to consumer welfare and competition.
Subcommittee on Market Structure and Antitrust
This working group came together to address specific problems arising from the digital platforms’ reach, scale, scope, and use of data. We were asked to examine concerns stemming from the market structure contemporary platforms have created, and to investigate their competitive behavior, including the consequences of network effects that can create barriers to entry for new innovators and entrench incumbents. The global nature of many of today’s platforms, a result of their scale, scope, and business models, creates novel complexities and considerations, particularly a concern that the digital platform may be a unique combination of economic forces that require both new analysis and new public policy. Regulatory authorities throughout the world are now turning their attention to these same questions. This report contributes to this international analytical project by providing some of the necessary frameworks and inputs. We intend it to be a complement to other recent work, as experts across the world wrestle with how to ensure that markets remain open and healthy, allowing beneficial technological and social advancements to continue. Many of our conclusions and suggestions echo the findings of reports that have come out in the past year, and we hope they will be helpful to those reports not yet released. The list of antitrust experts and agencies working on this problem includes Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the European Commission, France, Israel, and Japan
