An Open Letter to Public Officials: Proposed Antitrust Bills Would Harm Consumers and Undermine Innovation
We, the undersigned economic, legal, and public policy experts, write to express concern over legislative and executive branch proposals aimed at dramatically expanding government antitrust and competition regulation authority over the technology sector and ultimately the entire economy. Now is a particularly important time to remind policymakers that the principles embodied in the consumer welfare standard and light touch regulation remain relevant, applicable, and vital to our future prosperity.
Earlier this year, several antitrust bills were introduced in the U.S. Senate, supposedly to improve competition in the U.S technology sector. In reality these bills would punish American companies for offering integrated services, regardless of the benefits to consumers those services provide, and make a number of common business practices like selling private labels alongside name brands a violation of antitrust laws. Rather than advancing helpful competition standards based on sound economics, these proposals would require U.S. tech firms to obtain government pre-approval to promote and integrate new products. Such proposals are not based on any findings of market power or the ability to exclude rivals. Instead these are punitive measures that target a handful of tech firms that fall under a set of arbitrary criteria.
Many of us have warned about proposals that distort existing antitrust standards and fail to focus on harm to consumers. The Senate bills would almost certainly lead to such harm. They would disrupt the processes through which tech firms design new products and operate, thereby impairing competition in such markets. They would also erode the ability of American firms to compete with rivals in China and elsewhere in a wide range of emerging technologies, ranging from existing digital products to artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and quantum computing.
Government-required break-ups, restructuring, or restrictions on business models do not usually serve the interests of the consumers whom public officials seek to protect. If companies are utilizing business practices in demonstrably anticompetitive ways to harm consumers, existing antitrust law adequately equips the government with the tools to take reasonable action. These proposals seek to shift the focus of antitrust law away from helping consumers and toward bolstering competitors, thereby hindering economic growth and undermining decades of existing antitrust precedent. Moreover, they do not offer a solution to broader concerns about technology and privacy.
It is extremely rare to see proposals that would dramatically increase antitrust authority for only a small number of targeted companies. This could represent a very troubling turning point in competition policy that substantially shifts the focus away from the consumer welfare standard and endangers future innovation and competition. Accordingly, we urge public officials to avoid unnecessary, overzealous changes to antitrust laws that would weaken an already fragile economy and instead look for targeted reforms to improve the lives of consumers and promote pro-growth policies.
Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers Union
Asheesh Agarwal, Former Assistant Director, Federal Trade Commission
Charles W. Baird, California State University, East Bay
Ashley Baker, Committee for Justice
Don Bellante, University of South Florida
James T. Bennett, George Mason University
Bruce L. Benson, Florida State University
Michael T. Bond, University of Arizona
Samuel Bostaph, University of Dallas
Donald J. Boudreaux, George Mason University
Scott Bradford, Brigham Young University
Jason Brennan, Georgetown University
Wayne T. Brough, R Street Institute
Peter T. Calcagno, College of Charleston
James H. Cardon, Brigham Young University
Yong Chao, University of Louisville
Joe Cobb, Retired
Joab Corey, University of California, Riverside
Wayne Crews, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Joseph S. DeSalvo, University of South Florida, Tampa
Anthony Dukes, University of Southern California
Gerald P. Dwyer, Clemson University
James Edwards, Conservatives for Property Rights
Richard A. Epstein, NYU School of Law; the Hoover Institution; the University of Chicago Law School
John A. Flanders, Central Methodist University
Vivek Ghosal, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Tom Giovanetti, Institute for Policy Innovation
Casey Given, Young Voices
Stephan F. Gohmann, University of Louisville
Kenneth V. Greene, Binghamton University
Stephen K. Happel, Arizona State University
Jeff Haymond, Cedarville University
Tom Hebert, Open Competition Center
Patrick Hedger, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
David R. Henderson, Hoover Institution
Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, American Action Forum
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, San Jose State University
Mark A. Jamison, University of Florida and the American Enterprise Institute
Raymond J. Keating, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
Daniel B. Klein, George Mason University
Richard N. Langlois, University of Connecticut
Kent Lassman, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Thomas Lehman, Indiana Wesleyan University
Curt Levey, Committee For Justice
Stan J. Liebowitz, University of Texas, Dallas Tony
Lima Professor Emeritus of Economics, California State University, East Bay
Christopher Lingle, Universidad Francisco Marroquin
Carrie Lukas, Independent Women’s Forum
Abir Mandal, University of Mount Olive
Michael L. Marlow, California Polytechnic State University
Scott E. Masten, University of Michigan
Beverly McKittrick, FreedomWorks
W. Douglas McMillin, Louisiana State University (Emeritus)
Jessica Melugin, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Jim Miller. Former Chairman, Federal Trade Commission
Dan Mitchell, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Michael C. Munger. Duke University
Iain Murray, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform
Patrice Onwuka, Independent Women’s Forum
Yael Ossowski, Consumer Choice Center
Sam Peltzman, University of Chicago, Booth School (Emeritus)
Eric Peterson, Pelican Center for Technology and Innovation
Steve Pociask, American Consumer Institute
Aurelien Portuese, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Arturo C. Porzecanski, American University
Barry W. Poulson, University of Colorado Boulder
Andrew F. Quinlan, Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Nancy Roberts, Arizona State University
Paul Rubin, Emory University (Emeritus)
John Ruggiero, University of Dayton
Joseph T. Salerno, Mises Institute
Timothy Sandefur, Goldwater Institute
Charles Sauer, Market Institute
Dan Savickas, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Tom Schatz, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
William Franklin, Shughart II Utah State University
Vernon L. Smith, Chapman University
Daniel J. Smith, Middle Tennessee State University
Daniel Sutter, Troy University
John Tamny, FreedomWorks
Edward Tower, Duke University
Liad Wagman, Illinois Institute of Technology
Jeffrey Westling, American Action Forum
Josh Withrow, R Street Institute
Bill Z. Yang, Georgia Southern University
Ryan Young, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Benjamin Zycher, American Enterprise Institute
*Institutional affiliations are provided for identification purposes only.
