Antitrust with Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute

The massive market power of the big tech companies, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, has prompted a renewed interest in antitrust laws. To help us understand antitrust, we’ve invited Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute on to Economics Explained. The Grattan Institute is a leading Australian public policy think tank based in Melbourne. Danielle is Budget Policy and Institutional Reform Program Director at Grattan. Later this year, she will take up the CEO position at the Institute. Danielle is well qualified to talk about antitrust, having once worked as Principal Economist and Mergers Director at the ACCC, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.Check out Danielle’s 2019 Inside Story article The hipster trustbusters.TimestampsUse these timestamps to jump right to the highlights:1:45 – what is antitrust? 5:40 – the hipster trustbusters8:58 – the problem with Amazon12:20 – the Chicago school view on antitrust17:28 – the data the tech companies have on us and network effects as barriers to entry19:45 – Grattan’s analysis of market concentration in Australia25:05 – problem isn’t market power per se, but the abuse of it26:15 – discussion of US Department of Justice-Microsoft case31:10 – should we break up big tech companies?33:29 – ACCC has been good at pushing for new powers, but it hasn’t been successful in mergers cases in the courts in the last 20 yearsThe episode was recorded via Zoom video conferencing on the 10th of February 2020.