Aurelien Portuese, PhD

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.