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More Competitive Search Through Regulation

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This Article is part of a special issue comprised of a series of Articles prepared by a collection of economists and policy experts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union who have studied––and are committed to the improvement of––competition in digital markets. For other Articles in this issue, please click here.

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Fairness and Contestability in the Digital Markets Act

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This Article is part of a special issue comprised of a series of Articles prepared by a collection of economists and policy experts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union who have studied––and are committed to the improvement of––competition in digital markets. For other Articles in this issue, please click here.

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Equitable Interoperability: The “Supertool” of Digital Platform Governance

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This Article is part of a special issue comprised of a series of Articles prepared by a collection of economists and policy experts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union who have studied––and are committed to the improvement of––competition in digital markets. For other Articles in this issue, please click here.

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Market Design for Personal Data

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This Article is part of a special issue comprised of a series of Articles prepared by a collection of economists and policy experts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union who have studied––and are committed to the improvement of––competition in digital markets. For other Articles in this issue, please click here.

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Disclosures Regarding Authors’ Conflicts of Interest

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This disclosure document accompanies our special issue on digital platform regulation. We include this omnibus conflict-of-interest disclosure statement at the end of this special issue rather than appending Article-specific disclosure statements to each Article.  This omnibus disclosure document is intended to comply with the substantive principles of the Disclosure Policy of the American Economic Association. […]

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Opening a Federal Reserve Account

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To open bank accounts, new customers provide personal information and make a deposit. Within a few minutes (or perhaps a few days), new customers get access to payment services. For many years, the process financial institutions used to open accounts at Federal Reserve Banks was similar. Eligible banks filled out a one-page form and within […]

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The Market for Corporate Criminals

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This Article identifies problems and opportunities at the intersection of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate crime and compliance. In M&A, criminal successor liability is of particular importance, because it is quantitatively less predictable and qualitatively more threatening to buyers than successor liability in tort or contract. Private successor liability requires a buyer to bear […]

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The Corporate Governance of Public Utilities

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Rate-regulated public utilities own and operate one-third of U.S generators and nearly all the transmission and distribution system. These firms receive special regulatory treatment because they are protected from competition and subject to rate caps. In the past decade, they also have been at the center of high- profile corporate scandals. They have bribed regulators […]

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Equal Treatment Agreements: Theory, Evidence & Policy

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While the rise of dual-class companies—companies like Facebook, Google, and Visa, which have two or more classes of common stock that differ in voting rights—has been widely observed over the past decade, prior commentators have largely overlooked the important “equal treatment” agreements that are embedded in many dual-class charters. Equal treatment agreements require that stockholders are treated […]

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The Whistleblower Industrial Complex

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Although the whistleblower programs (WBPs) created by Dodd-Frank have received universal acclaim, little is known about how they actually work. In 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received an average of forty-nine whistleblower tips every workday. Success depends on sifting through this avalanche of tips to determine which ones to investigate. To date, however, […]

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In Search of the Public Interest

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“Public interest” standards in statutory delegations to agencies represent the greatest hopes and the darkest fears of the U.S. administrative state. On the one hand, the public interest standard provides a vessel for agencies to infuse policymaking with the moral and ethical commitments of the community. On the other hand, regulation in the public interest opens […]

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“A Vast Labor Bureau”: The Freedmen’s Bureau and the Administration of Countervailing Black Labor Power

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For a few short years starting in 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau exercised regulatory power over labor markets in a fashion unprecedented in ambition, scope, and reach in U.S. history up to that point—and, arguably, since. The Bureau used its broad authority to construct, regulate, and coordinate labor in the post-slavery South according to a racial-egalitarian vision […]

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The Promise & Perils of Open Finance

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We are at the dawn of a new age of Open Finance. Open Finance seeks to harness the potential of new platform technology to enhance customer data access, sharing, portability, and interoperability—thereby leveling the informational playing field and fostering greater competition between incumbent financial institutions and a new breed of financial technology (fintech) disruptors. According […]

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Stakeholder Capitalism in the Time of COVID

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This Article tests the claims of supporters of stakeholder capitalism (“stakeholderism”) in the context of the COVID pandemic. Supporters of stakeholderism advocate encouraging and relying on corporate leaders to use their discretion to serve stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, and the environment. The pandemic followed and was accompanied by peak support for, […]

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Privacy for Sale: The Law of Transactions in Consumers’ Private Data

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Lawmakers, regulators, consumer advocates, and the business community have focused increasing attention on the policy issues that arise at the intersection of privacy, technology, and commerce. Yet the law governing what businesses can do with consumer data remains unsettled and unclear. The United States has no dedicated and comprehensive privacy law, relying instead on a […]