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Full-Text Articles in Law
Dynamic Pricing Algorithms, Consumer Harm, And Regulatory Response, Alexander Mackay, Samuel Weinstein
Dynamic Pricing Algorithms, Consumer Harm, And Regulatory Response, Alexander Mackay, Samuel Weinstein
Articles
Pricing algorithms are rapidly transforming markets, from ride-sharing, to air travel, to online retail. Regulators and scholars have watched this development with a wary eye. Their focus so far has been on the potential for pricing algorithms to facilitate explicit and tacit collusion. This Article argues that the policy challenges pricing algorithms pose are far broader than collusive conduct. It demonstrates that algorithmic pricing can lead to higher prices for consumers in competitive markets and even in the absence of collusion. This consumer harm can be initiated by a single firm employing a superior pricing algorithm. Higher prices arise from …
Antitrust Liability For False Advertising: A Response To Carrier & Tushnet, Susannah Gagnon, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Antitrust Liability For False Advertising: A Response To Carrier & Tushnet, Susannah Gagnon, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
All Faculty Scholarship
This reply briefly considers when false advertising can give rise to antitrust liability. The biggest difference between tort and antitrust liability is that the latter requires harm to the market, which is critically dependent on actual consumer response. As a result, the biggest hurdle a private plaintiff faces in turning an act of false advertising into an antitrust offense is proof of causation – to what extent can a decline in purchase volume or other market rejection be specifically attributed to the defendant’s false claims? That requirement dooms the great majority of false advertising claims attacked as violations of the …
Addictive Technology And Its Implications For Antitrust Enforcement, James Niels Rosenquist, Fiona M. Scott Morton, Samuel N. Weinstein
Addictive Technology And Its Implications For Antitrust Enforcement, James Niels Rosenquist, Fiona M. Scott Morton, Samuel N. Weinstein
Articles
The advent of mobile devices and digital media platforms in the past decade represents the biggest shock to cognition in human history. Robust medical evidence is emerging that digital media platforms are addictive and, when used in excess, harmful to users’ mental health. Other types of addictive products, like tobacco and prescription drugs, are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Currently, there is no regulatory structure protecting digital media users from these harms. Antitrust enforcement and regulation that lowers entry barriers could help consumers of social media by increasing competition. Economic theory tells us that more choice in digital media will …