Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog

Enforcement Strategies in the Health Care Industry

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Commissioner Tom Rosch of the FTC has an interesting speech on Enforcement Strategies in the Health Care Industry that he gave at the  ABA Health Law Section 6th Annual Washington Healthcare Summit.

ABSTRACT: Today I will talk about four different competition issues in the health care industry that we face in the U.S. First I will discuss the macro issue of the pros and cons of universal health care. This issue is particularly relevant with a new Administration coming into the White House in January. I think we are likely to see substantial health care reforms (regardless of which party won the election earlier this month). It is vitally important that antitrust law stay abreast of any developments in health care reform, because reform will dictate the nature of competition. This topic also ties in to the other three areas I want to cover today that are more specific to antitrust law in the health care industry: joint physician contracting, specialty hospitals, and joint buying by large pharmaceutical benefit managers.

Competition and Innovation: An Experimental Investigation

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Armin Schmutzler, University of Zurich - Socioeconomic Institute (SOI) provides his thoughts on Competition and Innovation: An Experimental Investigation.

ABSTRACT: The paper analyzes the effects of more intense competition on firms' incentives to invest in process innovations. We carry out experiments based on two-stage games, where R&D investment choices are followed by product market competition. As predicted by theory, an increase in the number of firms from two to four reduces investments. However, a positive effect is observed for a switch from Cournot to Bertrand, even though theory predicts a negative effect in the four-player case.

Price Fixing in the Retail Industry

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Price Fixing in the Retail Industry

When:            

Thursday, December 4
9:00 - Breakfast Buffet
9:30 - Press Conference

Where:                        

National Press Club
529 14th Street NW, Washington, D.C.
The First Amendment Lounge (13th Floor)

Speakers:       

The Hon. Pamela Jones Harbour, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Tod Cohen, Vice President of Global Government Relations, eBay Inc.
Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America
Bert Foer, President, American Antitrust Institute
Seth Bloom, Senior Counsel, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate
Anant Raut, Majority Counsel, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives
Phil Smith, Owner, Kay's Kloset; Plaintiff in Leegin Supreme Court Case Jacob Weiss, President, BabyAge.com
Gregory T. Gundlach, Guest Editor, Antitrust Bulletin's Special Issue on RPM; Coggin Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida

Journalists are invited to register at www.antitrustinstitute.org.

FTC Issues Performance and Accountability Report for FY2008

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

The FTC has issued its Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) for FY2008.   

The PAR begins with a “Message from the Chairman” and includes three parts: Part I contains management’s discussion and analysis of the FTC’s performance and financial activities, including the agency’s Mission Challenges; Part II contains the Performance Report; and Part III contains the agency’s financial statements and independent audit results. The PAR can be viewed at www.ftc.gov/par.