Ask anyone in Australia’s competition law community what transformed the economy, and you will hear a familiar story. Australia was once a cartelised, complacent place where businesses divided up markets and consumers paid the price. Then came the Trade Practices Act in 1974, and competition law forced firms to compete. This is not a fringe […]
Dismantling the competition myth
Dismantling the competition myth
06 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, organisational economics, politics - Australia, technological progress, theory of the firm Tags: competition law, creative destruction
From Discount to Discrimination: The Strange Economics of Anti-Competitive Antitrust
24 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics Tags: competition law, creative destruction
Antitrust has always been a strange regulatory enterprise. Businesses are largely free to engage in various commercial practices involving price, output, product design, distribution, research, and innovation—until they’re not. Outside the paradigmatic examples of explicit agreements among competitors to fix price and output, many business practices live in a gray zone. Whether a particular pricing…
From Discount to Discrimination: The Strange Economics of Anti-Competitive Antitrust
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: competition law
The proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) assets by Netflix is already being cast as a landmark antitrust “test case.” If past deals are any guide, the critiques will follow a familiar script: narrow market definitions, selective data points, and headline-friendly market-share claims designed to trigger alarm. Yet in a video ecosystem defined by…
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
‘Market Power in Antitrust Cases,’ by William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner
17 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA, Richard Posner Tags: competition law
William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner’s 1981 Harvard Law Review article “Market Power in Antitrust Cases” is a true classic. Showing the value of interdisciplinary work within the law & economics tradition, it brought real clarity to what “market power” means and how courts should assess it—cutting through vague labels like “monopoly power” and…
‘Market Power in Antitrust Cases,’ by William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner
Vertical Restraints in the EU: Economics Has Updated, Law Hasn’t Installed the Patch
17 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics Tags: competition law
Online commerce has transformed how firms design their distribution systems, yet EU competition law continues to treat many online-sales restrictions as suspect by default. This tension lies at the heart of today’s vertical restraints debate. While the economic theory of vertical agreements has been largely settled for decades, the legal framework has not fully absorbed…
Vertical Restraints in the EU: Economics Has Updated, Law Hasn’t Installed the Patch
Evaluating the Sale of Warner Bros Discovery to Netflix from an Antitrust Perspective
09 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, market efficiency Tags: competition law
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has announced that it is selling its major assets to Netflix, including Warner Bros. Pictures (home of Harry Potter), DC Studios, and HBO Max. Netflix was chosen among a group of bidders that also included Paramount and Comcast. This post explores some of the antitrust issues and hurdles that a combined…
Evaluating the Sale of Warner Bros Discovery to Netflix from an Antitrust Perspective
Antitrust at the Agencies: Meta Analysis Edition
09 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: competition law
The memorandum and order in FTC v. Meta Platforms Inc. that U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg filed Nov. 18, ruling in favor of Meta, has now been followed by a Dec. 2 revised order that contained fewer redactions. The memorandum doesn’t exactly provide the law & economics analysis I would have produced, had…
Antitrust at the Agencies: Meta Analysis Edition
Metrics, Markets, and Merger Scrutiny: A Netflix-WBD Combination
06 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - USA Tags: competition law, creative destruction
This morning’s announced merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) would create a global media company of unprecedented scale. The transaction will also almost certainly attract scrutiny from antitrust regulators—most likely the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) Antitrust Division, rather than the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The deal would offer a direct test of the…
Metrics, Markets, and Merger Scrutiny: A Netflix-WBD Combination
Is Competitiveness Transforming Competition Policy?
06 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: competition law, creative destruction
Nations around the world are reassessing antitrust policy (generally called “competition policy” overseas). Governments, regulators, and industry leaders are increasingly asking whether traditional antitrust enforcement is holding back the “competitiveness” of domestic firms. The term now shows up in speeches by European commissioners, in UK government directives, in U.S. merger battles, and in Canadian legislative…
Is Competitiveness Transforming Competition Policy?
‘Limits of Antitrust’ by Frank Easterbrook
20 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics Tags: competition law
The Core Argument: Markets Beat Courts at Correcting Monopoly Frank H. Easterbrook’s 1984 Texas Law Review article “Limits of Antitrust” advances a deceptively simple thesis that fundamentally reoriented competition policy: antitrust law should recognize its own institutional limitations and design rules accordingly. The article contains two central insights. The first is that, because “antitrust is […]
‘Limits of Antitrust’ by Frank Easterbrook
Not-so-killer acquisitions
27 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA, theory of the firm Tags: competition law
Eric Crampton writes – A lot of changes are coming in competition policy. Last week, the government announced a package of reforms that, overall, set the Commerce Commission on a more activist tack. One proposed reform will align New Zealand more closely with Australia’s regime, guarding against so-called ‘killer acquisitions’.
Not-so-killer acquisitions
Greens say taxing supermarkets more will lower food prices!
10 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: competition law
Radio NZ reports: But the Greens’ commerce and consumer affairs spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March told RNZ that was only “one part of the puzzle” and the government needed to explore all its options – including breaking up the supermarket duopoly. “While we support having new players in the market, Nicola Willis is banking on big […]
Greens say taxing supermarkets more will lower food prices!
An attempt to lower NZ electricity prices could end up doing the opposite – here’s why
23 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in energy economics, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand Tags: competition law
Richard Meade writes – In its quest to lower electricity prices for New Zealand households, the Electricity Authority may inadvertently make the situation worse. This week, the authority announced plans to require New Zealand’s “gentailers” – firms that both generate electricity and retail it to consumers – to offer the same supply terms to independent retailers as […]
An attempt to lower NZ electricity prices could end up doing the opposite – here’s why
For a de minimus threshold for mergers
16 Aug 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: competition law, merger law enforcement
I’ve spent the last couple of days at the Competition Law and Policy Institute’s annual workshop.Webb-Henderson’s Lucy Wright made a good case for a de minimus threshold for merger controls. Small mergers could have a safe harbour, or mergers in markets of insufficient NZ importance.If we need to set a monetary threshold for a market…
For a de minimus threshold for mergers
Shorting Your Rivals: A Radical Antitrust Remedy
24 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, financial economics, industrial organisation Tags: competition law, competition law enforcement, mergers
Conventional antitrust enforcement tries to prevent harmful mergers by blocking them but empirical evidence shows that rival stock prices often rise when a merger is blocked—suggesting that many blocked mergers would have increased competition. In other words, we may be stopping the wrong mergers. In a clever proposal, Ayres, Hemphill, and Wickelgren (2024) argue that […]
Shorting Your Rivals: A Radical Antitrust Remedy
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