Multisided Platforms and Antitrust Enforcement

Multisided platforms are ubiquitous in today\u27s economy. Although newspapers demonstrate that the platform business model is scarcely new, recent economic analysis has explored more deeply the manner of its operation. Drawing upon these insights, we conclude that enforcers and courts should use a multiple-markets approach in which different groups of users on different sides of a platform belong in different product markets. This approach appropriately accounts for cross-market network effects without collapsing all of a platform\u27s users into a single product market. Furthermore, we advocate the use of a separate-effects analysis, which rejects the view that anticompetitive conduct harming users on one side of a platform can be justified so long as that harm funds benefits for users on another side. Courts should consider the price structure of a platform, and not simply the net price, in assessing competitive effects. This approach in tum supports our final conclusion: that antitrust plaintiffs should not be required to prove as part of their prima facie case more than occurrence of competitive harm in a properly-defined market; thereafter, the burden to produce procompetitive justifications should shift to defendants

Unlocking Antitrust Enforcement

There is no antitrust law without antitrust law enforcement. Legal action turns economic and jurisprudential theory into litigation, remedy, prohibition, deterrence, and precedent that advance competition. This Collection, Unlocking Antitrust Enforcement, demonstrates that tools to advance antitrust enforcement already exist, and they are well-suited to confront today\u27s U.S. antitrust challenges. The Features arrive at a critical moment, when economic forces mirror the industrial concentration and economic inequality of the turn of the twentieth century. Recall that the impetus for the creation of U.S. antitrust laws was the growing power of Industrial Age trusts, combinations of holdings within and across industries that dominated important economic sectors like oil, steel, and tobacco

Connectivity-based parcellation of the human frontal polar cortex

The frontal pole corresponds to Brodmann area (BA) 10, the largest single architectonic area in the human frontal lobe. Generally, BA10 is thought to contain two or three subregions that subserve broad functions such as multitasking, social cognition, attention, and episodic memory. However, there is a substantial debate about the functional and structural heterogeneity of this large frontal region. Previous connectivity-based parcellation studies have identified two or three subregions in the human frontal pole. Here, we used diffusion tensor imaging to assess structural connectivity of BA10 in 35 healthy subjects and delineated subregions based on this connectivity. This allowed us to determine the correspondence of structurally based subregions with the scheme previously defined functionally. Three subregions could be defined in each subject. However, these three subregions were not spatially consistent between subjects. Therefore, we accepted a solution with two subregions that encompassed the lateral and medial frontal pole. We then examined resting-state functional connectivity of the two subregions and found significant differences between their connectivities. The medial cluster was connected to nodes of the default-mode network, which is implicated in internally focused, self-related thought, and social cognition. The lateral cluster was connected to nodes of the executive control network, associated with directed attention and working memory. These findings support the concept that there are two major anatomical subregions of the frontal pole related to differences in functional connectivity

Physiological Correlates of Volunteering

We review research on physiological correlates of volunteering, a neglected but promising research field. Some of these correlates seem to be causal factors influencing volunteering. Volunteers tend to have better physical health, both self-reported and expert-assessed, better mental health, and perform better on cognitive tasks. Research thus far has rarely examined neurological, neurochemical, hormonal, and genetic correlates of volunteering to any significant extent, especially controlling for other factors as potential confounds. Evolutionary theory and behavioral genetic research suggest the importance of such physiological factors in humans. Basically, many aspects of social relationships and social activities have effects on health (e.g., Newman and Roberts 2013; Uchino 2004), as the widely used biopsychosocial (BPS) model suggests (Institute of Medicine 2001). Studies of formal volunteering (FV), charitable giving, and altruistic behavior suggest that physiological characteristics are related to volunteering, including specific genes (such as oxytocin receptor [OXTR] genes, Arginine vasopressin receptor [AVPR] genes, dopamine D4 receptor [DRD4] genes, and 5-HTTLPR). We recommend that future research on physiological factors be extended to non-Western populations, focusing specifically on volunteering, and differentiating between different forms and types of volunteering and civic participation

Just how open must an open network be for an open network to be labeled "open"?

In 2003, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide in multiple contexts the extent to which governmental action should be used to maintain the "openness" of telecommunications and Internet networks. At the same time, the European Union will put into effect its new, comprehensive Access Directive. 2003 may, therefore, be a critical year for the future of governmental policy towards the "openness" of next-generation networks. This paper argues that the debate between "open" and "closed" networks has been insufficiently precise and, therefore, has failed to bring to policy makers' attention critical factors of decision. That is because the choice between "open" and "closed" networks is not binary; rather it consists of different policy bases operating from different perspectives on the network. Arguments for or against governmental opening of a network can be premised on a variety of disciplinary regimes that include, for example, engineering principles, economic theory, social philosophy and legal analysis. Often ignored is the plain fact that these disciplines do not always line up with each other. This will be critical to understand if in the future policy makers are asked to weigh claims of economic theory ? say the need to encourage investment ? against claims of social philosophy ? say the value of free speech and experimentation. Nor do contentions necessarily operate at the same perspective. From a user's perspective, the network can include the activities of an end user, competitive network provider, an independent content/software provider, or the network owner itself. Thus a claim of an end user's "right" to access content through a network may shed little light on the claim of a competitive network provider to use that same network. This paper demonstrates the interplay of the policy bases and network perspectives with four examples: Access to Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) networks; access to U.S. cable networks; the European perspective as demonstrated in the Access Directive; and, the architecture of the Internet itself. Along the way, the paper also notes, as an aspect of future analysis, the extent to which the Internet as an "idea" influenced public policy in a manner that departed from normal interest-group politics. The paper posits, as an example, a decisional template that could be employed, for each perspective on the network, to distinguish between policy disciplines. The paper concludes by noting those circumstances that reinforce the continuing importance of the "open/closed" network question. The goal of this paper is not to advocate for any particular policy outcome. It is, rather, to demonstrate that current policy analysis would benefit from applying greater analytical precision to the question of whether ? and why ? governments should act to open next-generation networks. Finally, the paper includes an addendum reviewing regulatory activity in February 2003