Giants among us: competition policy and platforms

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

In this event, Professor Michael Munger (Duke University) will deliver a lecture on competition in digital markets.

The traditional approach to discipline of commercial actors is to ensure multiple firms, and competition. But platforms have natural network economies that create 'Giants'. Traditional antitrust--breaking firms up into smaller units--makes little sense. And using price/quantity regulation--making platforms, in effect, public utilities--faces daunting problems of stultifying competition. The problem may be an incorrect diagnosis; what is the core problem with 'Giants'? The answer has more to do with Foucault's notion of 'dispositifs' and social power than with economics.

Speaker: Munger is the Pfizer, Inc./Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of the PPE Certificate Program at Duke University. His primary research focus is on the functioning of markets, regulation, and government institutions. He has taught at Dartmouth College, University of Texas, and University of North Carolina (where he was Director of the Master of Public Administration Program), as well as working as a staff economist at the Federal Trade Commission during the Reagan Administration.