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Aurelien Portuese, PhD

Aurelien Portuese, PhD

Research Professor and Founding Director, GW Competition & Innovation Lab; Lawyer

The George Washington University; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Dr. Aurelien Portuese was the director of the Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy, which promotes a dynamic framework for competition policy in which innovation is the primary concern for antitrust enforcement, rather than a secondary one.

Recent Publications

May 15, 2023

The Great Revealing: Taking Competition in America and Europe Seriously

With its provocative claim that America now has less economic competition than the EU, Thomas Philippon’s book The Great Reversal has become a bible for neo-Brandeisians. But reports of the death of competition in America are highly exaggerated: While U.S. antitrust remains effective, EU competition policy has failed to stimulate innovation, productivity, or growth.

May 3, 2023

Why Merger Guidelines Must Do More to Support Productivity, Innovation, and Global Competitiveness

Antitrust authorities want to revise merger guidelines based on dubious theories of potential harm that fail to recognize how many mergers foster innovation, productivity, and U.S. global competitiveness. New merger guidelines should better account for these considerations.

April 10, 2023

U.S. Antitrust Kneecaps Companies Trying to Compete Globally

Throughout its 100-year-plus history, U.S. antitrust policy has studiously ignored the issue of global economic competitiveness. Indeed, U.S. antitrust enforcers have often harmed U.S. companies while helping their foreign counterparts, as DOJ would do by blocking the Microsoft-Activision aquisition.

April 10, 2023

Schumpeter Is Right, Brandeis Is Wrong: Large Retailers Benefit the Economy More Than Small Retailers

Large retail companies are more productive than small retailers. That is why they can offer better prices to consumers, pay higher wages to their employees, and contribute more to the overall economy—which puts the lie to the neo-Brandeisian argument that “big is bad.”

March 20, 2023

App Store Implementation of the Digital Markets Act Exemplifies Law’s Uncertain Future

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) fails to clearly explain how it will affect different types of mobile ecosystems. The European Commission's recent workshop to examine the DMA’s requirements for alternate app distribution and interoperability provided neither regulatory clarity nor addressed economic concerns related to its unintended consequences.

March 13, 2023

Platforms Are the New Organizational Paradigm

Just as there was opposition to the corporate economy in the early 1900s, there is opposition to the platform economy today. But limiting “platformization” would have considerable long-lasting economic costs for the nation and consumers.

March 7, 2023

The Digital Coase Theorem and the News

In Competition Policy International, Aurelien Portuese writes on digital news aggregators and why the traditional approach favors inefficiency and stifles innovation.

March 2, 2023

Comments to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada Regarding the Future of Competition Policy

The regulatory onslaught from Europe will not transpose well in Canada because of the latter’s idiosyncratic circumstances: a smaller market, fewer innovation capabilities, and a more commercially avoidable market.

January 14, 2023

Let’s Unite for US Tech Leadership, Mr. President

President Biden has accused leading U.S. tech companies of destroying privacy, spreading harmful content, and hurting competition. Not only are these alleged abuses vastly overblown, but the regulatory solutions he appears to endorse would do more harm than good.

January 2, 2023

Will Antitrust Undermine the Future of Gaming?

If the FTC is concerned that games like “Call of Duty” may be removed from competing platforms, then the solution is simple: It could settle with Microsoft, requiring the company to make this content available on other platforms.

December 16, 2022

An Antitrust Agenda for a Split Congress

This split Congress presents a real opportunity for antitrust reforms, which require bipartisanship to enable lasting changes that truly benefit the economy and consumers.

December 15, 2022

FTC Rulemaking for Online Marketplaces Would Be Déjà Vu All Over Again

In a collision course between consumers’ interests and enforcers’ interests, the forthcoming FTC rulemaking on online marketplaces cannot benefit them both.

More publications by Aurelien Portuese, PhD

Recent Events and Presentations

April 18, 2024

The DMA in Action: Early Effects and Global Reach

Watch now for a panel discussion featuring experts from the EU, Brazil, Korea, and the United States.

March 22, 2023

Strategic Autonomy and Europe’s Shattered Single Market

Aurelien Portuese and ECIPE discuss Europe’s single market fatigue and how it counteracts political ambitions for European strategic autonomy.

December 15, 2022

Epic V. Apple: A Discussion Amongst Amici

Aurelien Portuese speaks on a NYSBA panel discussing the recent Epic v. Apple appeal hearing and the potential impact that may stem from the case.

November 11, 2022

MCC Conference on Essential State Functions in Platform Regulation

Aurelien Portuese, co-director of the Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy, will speak on the panel, "Fundamental Questions and Challenges in Competition Law and Consumer Protection."

November 3, 2022

Berkeley Law AI Institute

Aurelien Portuese speaks on day four of the Berkeley Law AI Institute on the panel, "Global Competition for AI Supremacy and the Impact on Regulatory Schemes."

October 6, 2022

Fighting Back Against Antitrust Populism

Aurelien Portuese chairs an expert panel discussion as part of a Cato conference that brings together leading economists and policymakers to discuss the ascendant political threats of progressivism and national conservatism to the free economy.

September 22, 2022

The EU’s Digital Markets Act: A Triumph of Regulation Over Innovation?

Watch ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy's event for an expert panel discussion and presentation of a new report on the challenges ahead in implementing and enforcing the DMA.

August 10, 2022

Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: Commissioner Noah Phillips

In this conversation, Director of the Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy, Aurelien Portuese, sits down with Commissioner Noah Phillips of the Federal Trade Association to learn about his views on the current state of antitrust and competition policy and the state of capitalism in America.

June 3, 2022

Assessing the Neo-Brandeisian Revolution: Looking for Mr. Schumpeter?

Watch this expert discussion about how to integrate the Schumpeterian perspective into competition policy as an alternative to the Neo-Brandeisian movement agenda.

April 1, 2022

Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: “The Regulatory Revolution Against Mergers”

Please join ITIF for the latest in a series of discussions on “dynamic antitrust,” in which ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy hosts leading scholars and antitrust enforcers to discuss the path forward in making antitrust a foundation for innovation.

March 24, 2022

Precautionary Antitrust: Competition Without Innovation

Dr. Aurelien Portuese delivered a guest lecture for Judge Douglas Ginsburg’s course on antitrust at George Mason University.

March 21, 2022

Dynamic Antitrust Discussion Series: “The FTC Rulemaking Agenda—Dwindled Innovation Through Regulation?”

Please join ITIF for the latest in a series of discussions on “dynamic antitrust,” in which ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy hosts leading scholars and antitrust enforcers to discuss the path forward in making antitrust a foundation for innovation.

More Events & Presentations by Aurelien Portuese, PhD

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