Anti-Trust in the Modern Economy

Are Google search practices anticompetitive? Should Facebook be broken up? Does Amazon have too much market power? The course will present the economic rationale for competition policy and provide students with an understanding of the practice of competition law. Through the examination of prominent antitrust actions, we will review the economic theories underlying competition law and we will discuss how competition policy places limits on firm behavior and affects firm strategies and managerial choices. The course will start with an overview of the institutional framework of competition policy in the U.S. and in the E.U. and an economic analysis of welfare implications of market power. Then, it will address different types of actions that are the focus of competition policy enforcement: mergers, collusions, and unilateral conducts. These actions will be analyzed through the study of well-known antitrust actions in the U.S. and in the E.U. In particular, the course will focus on recent cases in the digital economy.