Andrea Asoni

Digital companies have profoundly reshaped the economy. They have opened new distribution channels, reorganized supply chains, transformed how businesses reach their customers, and affected people not only as consumers but also as citizens. Not surprisingly, as the reach of these companies grows, so does the level of public scrutiny over their business practices. Recently, several policymakers and commentators have expressed concerns about many digital companies’ dual role as marketplaces used… Show more

Digital companies have profoundly reshaped the economy. They have opened new distribution channels, reorganized supply chains, transformed how businesses reach their customers, and affected people not only as consumers but also as citizens. Not surprisingly, as the reach of these companies grows, so does the level of public scrutiny over their business practices. Recently, several policymakers and commentators have expressed concerns about many digital companies’ dual role as marketplaces used by third-party sellers and as sellers on the same marketplace. For example, platforms have both the ability to steer customers towards their own products and to appropriate, through imitation, the profits associated with the most successful products on their platforms. Both practices could harm consumers. In light of these concerns, some have proposed a structural separation, a prohibition for the most prominent digital platforms to play both the role of the player and umpire.

While these are not new concerns, there is a burgeoning economic literature which studies the incentives of platforms to move up or down the supply chain and the effect of such entry on prices, innovation, and ultimately consumer welfare. In this article Andrea Asoni discusses some of the most recent studies and what they teach us about the effects of an outright ban on platform integration. The economic literature suggests that the effects of platform integration depend on the characteristics of the platforms and the industry, and that platforms acting in their own self-interest might be aligned with and ultimately benefit consumers, competition, and innovation. These findings suggest that a fact-based, case-specific approach to the analysis of platform integration is better than a broad-based policy that may not fit all circumstances. Hence, legislation or regulation imposing a general ban on platform integration could end up doing more harm than good. Show less

The growth of e-commerce and “tech” firms has affected the economy and consumers in many significant ways. There is renewed interest by the media, academia, and government in the role that tech companies play in facilitating or hindering the exchange of goods, services, resources, innovation, and ideas.

Furthermore, the growth of technology has significantly affected antitrust and competition analysis. The importance of innovation, the dynamic nature of the tech sector, the blurring of… Show more

The growth of e-commerce and “tech” firms has affected the economy and consumers in many significant ways. There is renewed interest by the media, academia, and government in the role that tech companies play in facilitating or hindering the exchange of goods, services, resources, innovation, and ideas.

Furthermore, the growth of technology has significantly affected antitrust and competition analysis. The importance of innovation, the dynamic nature of the tech sector, the blurring of the lines between online and “brick-and-mortar” businesses have made antitrust analysis more complex and added additional uncertainty, requiring a careful approach by antitrust practitioners, regulators, and legislators that can balance the long-term and short-term incentives to innovate and compete.

Because of the sheer size of the subject matter, this paper will only scratch the surface of many complex issues and leave others outside of its scope. In particular, this paper focuses on “market definition,” analyses aimed at identifying all market competitors in a given segment, and the analysis of entry and growth. What emerges is that while e-commerce has generally benefited consumers and promoted competition, it has also rendered antitrust analysis and competition policy more complex, dynamic, and perhaps uncertain. Show less

In the Summer 2017 edition of the Transportation and Energy Industries Committee’s Newsletter, the authors examine two economic tools, the modified HHI and the modified GUPPI, that may be useful in the antitrust analysis of partial acquisitions and joint ventures. The authors motivate the economic principles underlying these two tools and discuss how the economists at the agencies may use these tools in their antitrust analysis of partial acquisitions and joint ventures

In the Winter 2017 edition of the ABA Economics Committee Newsletter, Andrea Asoni analyzes the geographic market definition in the hospital sector through two recent Court of Appeal decisions on merger cases

We use a multipronged identification strategy to estimate the effect of college education on business and employment survival. We account for the endogeneity of both education and business ownership with a competing risks duration model augmented with a college selection equation. We estimate the model jointly on the self-employed and salaried employees in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Unlike most previous studies, we find that college does not increase business survival. By… Show more

We use a multipronged identification strategy to estimate the effect of college education on business and employment survival. We account for the endogeneity of both education and business ownership with a competing risks duration model augmented with a college selection equation. We estimate the model jointly on the self-employed and salaried employees in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Unlike most previous studies, we find that college does not increase business survival. By contrast, a college degree significantly increases employment survival. Cognitive skills have a positive impact on survival for both the self-employed and employees. These findings suggest that college benefits the self-employed less than salaried, perhaps by generating skills more useful in employment than self-employment, or because of differences in the value of signaling. Show less

We study the effect of taxation on entrepreneurship, investigating how taxes affect both the number of start-ups and their average quality. We show theoretically that even with risk neutral agents and no tax evasion progressive taxes can increase entrepreneurial entry, while reducing average firm quality. So called “success taxes” encourage start-ups with lower value business ideas by reducing the option value of pursuing better projects. This suggests that the most common measure used in the… Show more

We study the effect of taxation on entrepreneurship, investigating how taxes affect both the number of start-ups and their average quality. We show theoretically that even with risk neutral agents and no tax evasion progressive taxes can increase entrepreneurial entry, while reducing average firm quality. So called “success taxes” encourage start-ups with lower value business ideas by reducing the option value of pursuing better projects. This suggests that the most common measure used in the literature, the likelihood of entry into self-employment, may underestimate the adverse effect of taxation. Show less

This paper presents a survey of the literature on property rights and economic growth. Different theoretical mechanisms that relate property rights to economic development are discussed. Lack of protection of property rights can result in slow economic growth through different channels: expropriation of private wealth, corruption of civil servants, excessive taxation and barriers to adoption of new technologies. The origins of property rights are also considered. Different theories are… Show more

This paper presents a survey of the literature on property rights and economic growth. Different theoretical mechanisms that relate property rights to economic development are discussed. Lack of protection of property rights can result in slow economic growth through different channels: expropriation of private wealth, corruption of civil servants, excessive taxation and barriers to adoption of new technologies. The origins of property rights are also considered. Different theories are illustrated but more attention is paid to the ‘social conflict view’ and its success and limitations. The second part of the paper illustrates relevant empirical works on property rights and growth. Show less