Essays in behavioral antitrust law and economics
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The Big Data revolution has allowed companies to steer their users' behavior with astonishing effectiveness. While antitrust scholarship has tended to stay away from the influx of behavioral economics, enforcers, policymakers, and scholars have recently suggested that firms tend to exploit behavioral biases to monopolize markets. This is especially common in platform markets, in which a company may not only own the technology infrastructure that allows firms to operate in the platform but may also compete in it downstream (e.g., Microsoft Windows' tying of Internet Explorer, and Android's tying of Chrome). A hypothesis that has gained considerable traction in the last few years is that agreements to set an application as a default unfairly restrict competition, regardless of whether the platform is vertically integrated or not (e.g., Google pays Apple to have its search engine as Apple's default). Because people rarely change defaults, conventional wisdom holds that default agreements amount to exclusivity arrangements. Furthermore, it suggests that because dominant firms take advantage of their users' lack of choice, forcing users to choose their defaults is the best regulatory remedy for correcting market concentration. This dissertation criticizes the behavioral premise that conventional wisdom assumes, as well as the legal categorizations and policy implications that follow from it. This work proposes a richer analytical framework to predict when default effects are likely, calls into question the theory that default agreements are de facto exclusive dealing, and criticizes the effectiveness of forced-choice remedies. Nevertheless, my research suggests that the strategic use of defaults is usually a part of a broader monopolization scheme and that forced choice may sometimes be necessary to encourage the entry of potential competitors. These articles have significant implications for the interpretation of monopolization standards in exclusive dealing and monopoly maintenance cases, for applying potential competition theories to antitrust enforcement, and for the design and implementation—either by regulators or judges—of effective remedies to promote competition in digital markets.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Vasquez Duque, Omar Patricio |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | MacCoun, Robert |
| Degree supervisor | Melamed, A |
| Thesis advisor | MacCoun, Robert |
| Thesis advisor | Melamed, A |
| Thesis advisor | Donohue, John |
| Thesis advisor | Goldin, Jacob |
| Thesis advisor | Lemley, Mark |
| Degree committee member | Donohue, John |
| Degree committee member | Goldin, Jacob |
| Degree committee member | Lemley, Mark |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Law |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Omar Vasquez Duque. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Law JSD. |
| Thesis | Thesis JSD Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/mh103fq4241 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Omar Patricio Vasquez Duque
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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