Restructuring Competition: The Biden Executive Order and Beyond

A panel discussion sponsored by the Penn Program on Regulation
and the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition

On Friday, President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order calling for 72 new actions by the federal government aimed at increasing market competition and strengthening antitrust enforcement. Biden’s executive order comes on the heels of both a major antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by 36 U.S. states and the District of Columbia as well as the approval by the House Judiciary Committee of significant changes to antitrust law targeting Big Tech firms. This flurry of antitrust policy activity raises many important questions about the future of economic competition in the United States. What implications and tradeoffs do the Biden executive order hold for today’s economy? Should federal regulators abandon the longstanding consumer welfare standard used as the basis for antitrust decisions? Are workers and consumers likely to gain or lose from the federal antitrust policy changes that loom ahead?

These questions and others will be addressed in a panel conversation held online with three of the University of Pennsylvania’s leading scholars of antitrust law and policy: Herbert Hovenkamp, author of the newly published article, “Antitrust and Platform Monopoly”; Jonathan Klick, author of “Is the Digital Economy Too Concentrated?”; and Ioana Marinescu, co-author of “Why Has Antitrust Law Failed Workers?” The session will be moderated by Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Penn Program on Regulation.