2018 Antitrust and Competition Conference - Digital Platforms and Concentration

Breakfast

8:20 a.m. – 8:25 a.m.

Welcome remarks - Guy Rolnik, Conference Organizer, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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8:25 a.m.– 8:30 a.m.

Opening remarks - Daniel Diermeier, Provost, University of Chicago

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8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

The Rise of Digital Platforms
The economic and societal role of digital platforms has grown dramatically in the last decade. Are the large Internet companies really “platforms”? Can they have outsized influence in many market and industries? What explains the size and success of these companies? Are they designing their products to be addictive? What are the most important policy questions that these companies raise?

Moderator: Patrick Foulis,New York Bureau Chief, The Economist

• Robert Epstein, Senior Research Psychologist, American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology
• Tristan Harris, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Center for Humane Technology
• Kevin Murphy, George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Fiona Scott Morton, Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics, Yale University School of Management
• Chad Syverson, Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Ben Thompson, Author and Founder, Stratechery

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10:00 a.m.– 10:15 a.m.

Break

10:15 a.m.– 11:45 a.m.

Big Data: Economic, Ownership, Legal, and Political Aspects
User data is arguably digital platforms’ most valuable asset. How data are used has profound economic, social, and political implications. What are these implications? Where along the value chain do data belong? Could reassigning ownership of the data and making it easily available to users promote competition and address privacy concerns?

Moderator: Ludwig Siegele, Technology Editor, The Economist

• Julia Angwin, Senior Reporter, ProPublica
• Dennis Carlton, David McDaniel Keller Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Richard Schmalensee, Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management and Dean Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Jonathan Taplin, Director Emeritus, Annenberg Innovation Lab, University of Southern California
• Luigi Zingales, Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance; Faculty Director, Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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11:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Break

12:00 p.m.– 1:15 p.m.

Lunch Keynote - Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice

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1:15 p.m.– 1:30 p.m.

Break

1:30 p.m.– 3:15 p.m.

The Big Five and Political Power
The largest technology companies—Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple—are active political players, using the traditional levers of lobbying and financing of research, think tanks, and political campaigns. However, it is their market power, and leverage over media outlets, that opens up new avenues for these platforms and foreign actors that exploit vulnerabilities in their systems to dominate and control the flow of political information among voters. How do they influence political discourse, the marketplace of ideas, and democracy more broadly?

Moderator: Matt Stoller, Fellow, Open Markets Insitute

• Scott Cleland, President, Precursor LLC
• Ellen Goodman, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School and Co-director, Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law
• Barry Lynn, Executive Director, Open Markets Institute
• Guy Rolnik, Clinical Associate Professor of Strategic Management, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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3:15 p.m.– 3:30 p.m.

Break

3:30 p.m.– 5:00 p.m.

Digital Platforms: Market Power and Market Failures
Digital platforms (e.g. Facebook, Google, Twitter) rely on network effects to build vast ecosystems of users, advertisers and third-party developers, and to attain substantive market power. How should that market power be measured and what concerns does it raise for competition and entry? What are the market failures left unaddressed by these digital platforms and how should we expect them to govern their respective ecosystems?

Moderator: Jesse Eisinger,Senior Reporter and Editor, ProPublica

• Jay Pil Choi, University Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University
• Andrei Hagiu, Visiting Associate Professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management, MIT Sloan School of Management
• Sarit Markovich, Clinical Associate Professor of Strategy and Associate Chair of the Strategy Department, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management
• Fiona Scott Morton, Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics, Yale University School of Management
• Carl Shapiro, Professor of the Graduate School, Haas School of Business and Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley

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5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Reception and dinner

Dinner Keynote - Alvin Roth, Nobel Laureate and Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics, Stanford University

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• Elvir Causevic, Managing Director and Co-Head, Tech+IP, Houlihan Lokey
• Matt Perault, Director, Public Policy, Facebook
• Albert Wenger, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures
• Glen Weyl, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research New England and Visiting Senior Research Scholar, Department of Economics and Law School, Yale University

• Alejandra Palacios, Commissioner and Chair, Mexico Federal Economic Competition Commission (COFECE)
• Randal Picker, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
• Daniel Stevens, Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability, Google Transparency Project
• Tim Wu, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
• Luigi Zingales, Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance; Faculty Director, Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

• Joshua Gans, Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair of Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Professor of Strategic Management, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
• Austan Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Lina Khan, Director, Legal Policy, Open Markets Institute
• Maurice Stucke, Professor of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law and Of Counsel, The Konkurrenz Group
• Ben Thompson, Author and Founder, Stratechery

• Ariel Ezrachi, Slaughter and May Professor of Competition Law and Director, Centre for Competition Law and Policy, University of Oxford
• Justus Haucap, Director, Duesseldorf Institute for Competition Economics, Heinrich-Heine University of Duesseldorf
• William Kovacic, Global Competition Professor and Director, Competition Law Center, George Washington University Law School
• Gary Reback, Of Counsel, Carr & Ferrell LLP
• Thomas Vinje, Partner and Chairman, Global Antitrust Group, Clifford Chance LLP

5:00 p.m.