Competition Lore Podcast

Across developing countries, connectivity through internet access and use, particularly on mobile devices, has vastly improved over the last decade. In large part this is due to the efforts of Big Tech and their strategies of reaching “the next billion users”.  As welcome as such efforts may be, there are risks also for competition as a key driver of economic development and growth. So how have governments and comp...

There wouldn’t be too many more prized, and pressured, jobs than as Chief Economist at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, and particularly in recent years when DG Comp has been at the vanguard of developments in antitrust enforcement against Big Tech.

Professor Tommaso Valletti has just completed his three year term as DG Comp’s Chief Economist and has much to share about his experienc...

Much of the antitrust discourse nowadays is about personal data and the implications of concentrated digital markets for our privacy.  But, in focussing on data, have we been missing the wood for the trees?  Are we in fact trading our scarce and precious attention for many of the supposedly free services we enjoy online?

In this episode our guest, Associate Professor John Newman from the University of Miami, discusses hi...

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has completed its ground-breaking inquiry into digital platforms. What distinguishes this inquiry from many others is its broad holistic approach to competition, consumer, unfair trading, privacy and public interest issues.  It has a focus on the media and advertising sectors but, if accepted, many of its 23 recommendations will have economy-wide effects.

In this episode...

The pervasiveness of platforms in our societies is hard to ignore.  It has wide ranging effects on and implications for our economic, social and cultural practices and lives. Some focus on the dominance of digital platforms as a failing of antitrust and call for an entire overhaul of the intellectual enterprise. Others go further.  One of those is the guest on this episode, Professor Frank Pasquale of the University ...

The George Stigler Centre at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has been undertaking a wide ranging study of digital platforms. One aspect of the study has a focus on market structures in digital platform markets and the antitrust implications. Other aspects explore privacy and data protection, media and the political system. 

Each of these aspects of the study have been examined by a subcommittee which has pr...

Between them GAFA have made more than 400 acquisitions over just the last 10 years. With the benefit of hindsight, many of these acquisitions have been portrayed as strategic or killer acquisitions, designed to snuff out potential or emergent competitive threats.

Recognising this, there is a growing view that competition authorities must be more prepared to protect competitive market structures and to do so may require changes in ...

If you spend any time reading the US press you will have realised that there’s recently been a potentially dramatic series of developments when it comes to Big Tech antitrust.  Investigations, congressional hearings and even break ups are all on the menu.

In this episode our guest is Matt Stoller, Fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a US think-tank on a mission to address threats posed to democracy from monopoly power...

Blockchain is a technology that both bedazzles and bewilders!  For its hard core advocates, it is seen as the answer to the problem of concentrated power on the internet.  For others, its workings are as impenetrable as its implications.

In this episode we are joined by Dr Thibault Schrepel, Assistant Professor at the Utrecht University School of Law and Faculty Affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Center, who has made resea...

Digitalisation has transformed the advertising industry.  Not only are advertisers now able to target consumers to a far greater extent than was possible with traditional advertising, but they are also able to track and assess the performance of their ads in ways previously unimaginable.

What makes this all possible is the treasure trove of data that we, as consumers, generate with our inexhaustible digital footprints. But do...

An expert panel appointed by the UK government has recently released its report on changes to competition policy to help unlock the opportunities of the digital economy.

One of the co-authors, Professor Philip Marsden, describes it as a “quintessentially British” contribution to the global debate on whether we need adjustments to the law and/or regulation to deal with the competition challenges posed by power in digita...

Just over a decade after a financial crisis that shook the world, regulators have worked over time to move the financial system from the brink of chaos back to safe ground. But while the preoccupation has been with financial stability, in many countries, it has not been good news for competition.

Technological developments and data innovations have opened up more choice and new ways of banking for consumers. Nevertheless, many see...

The advent of algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence have led some to argue that we are living in an age of “mass personalisation”.  While the benefits of these technological advances are largely self-evident, there is a growing chorus of alarm.  Concerns include increased risks of consumer manipulation, discrimination, loss of diversity and ultimately a loss of autonomy or the capacity to ch...

Neither the law nor economics are value-neutral sciences. If we are to understand why and how competition laws operate in a certain way in an individual jurisdiction, we need to understand the underlying values and belief systems that inform and shape its design and enforcement.

In this episode, we are joined by Slaughter & May Professor of Competition Law and Director of the Centre for Competition Law and Policy at the Univer...

In this final (for now) episode in our series on blockchain, we move beyond the economic and legal analysis to consider whether this technology might inform and be part of a broader movement for political and social change.

We are joined by Glen Weyl, founder and Chairman of the RadicalxChange Foundation, Principal Researcher at Microsoft and Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public...

Blockchain technology and smart contracts hold some promise for reinvigorating competition, providing more efficient and secure ways of doing business on the internet, while at the same time lifting the bar in data protection and privacy.

But is this new general purpose technology all that it’s made out to be? Will it challenge the power of the major digital platforms?  And what are the risks that blockchain itself will...

Blockchain is not just bitcoin. It’s a general purpose technology that some say has the potential to revolutionise swathes of the economy, creating a new, more efficient, more secure way to exchange information and value.

But just as was true of the early days of the internet, a real understanding of blockchain technology eludes many of us, making it difficult to think meaningfully about its promise and its pitfalls.

In thi...

Donald Trump’s frequent railings about “fake news” have gone viral, possibly even more so than the so-called “fake news” itself.

For some, however, the proliferation of fake news on digital platforms is a serious problem. And many are asking whether it is a problem caused by the power of Facebook and Google over when, where and how we consume news.

This episode investigates the meaning of the now oft...

Facebook has been taking fire on a host of fronts from governments and regulators around the world.  One of the latest to take aim is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in its Inquiry into Digital Platforms and their impact on media and advertising sectors.

In episode 20 of the podcast Dr Katherine Kemp explained the key findings and recommendations in the ACCC’s preliminary report, in which the Commissi...