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Full-Text Articles in Law
Tech Giant Exclusion, John B. Kirkwood
Tech Giant Exclusion, John B. Kirkwood
Faculty Articles
There is no topic in regulatory policy that is more pressing and more controversial than what to do about the tech giants – Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. Critics claim that that these powerful platforms crush competitors, distort the political process, and elude antitrust law because it cares only about consumer prices. The only solution, they argue, is to break them up.
This diagnosis is mistaken. The tech giants have indeed engaged in anticompetitive conduct. They have excluded rivals selling products on their platforms by demoting them in search results, copying their products, or refusing to deal with them. While …
Antitrust And Two-Sided Platforms: The Failure Of American Express, John B. Kirkwood
Antitrust And Two-Sided Platforms: The Failure Of American Express, John B. Kirkwood
Faculty Articles
Two-sided platforms serve two sets of customers and enable them to interact with each other. The five most valuable corporations in America – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft – all operate two-sided platforms. But despite their growing power, the Supreme Court's American Express decision has made it harder to stop them from stifling competition. This Article systematically exposes the flaws in the Court's reasoning and identifies the principles that should govern future cases. The Court’s most fundamental error was to require plaintiffs in rule of reason cases to make an initial showing of consumer harm that weighs the effects …
Buyer Power And Healthcare Prices, John B. Kirkwood
Buyer Power And Healthcare Prices, John B. Kirkwood
Faculty Articles
One major reason why healthcare costs are much higher in America than in other countries in that our prices are exceptionally high. In this article, I address whether we ought to rely more heavily on buyer power to reduce those prices, as other nations do. I focus on two sectors where greater buyer could easily be exercised: prescription drugs covered by Medicare and hospital and physician services covered by private insurance. I conclude that the biggest buyer of all, the federal government, should be allowed to negotiate Medicare prescription drug prices. That would substantially reduce the prices of many branded …