Luigi Zingales

Big Tech and Antitrust: Rethinking Competition Policy for the Digital Era

David Faber, Tyler Cowen, Makan Delrahim, Sally Hubbard, Luigi Zingales

Justice Department official Makan Delrahim, panelists Luigi Zingales, Sally Hubbard, and Tyler Cowen debated the implications of the AT&T/Time Warner and T-Mobile/Sprint mergers while critiquing Big Tech's "platform privilege" and data monopolies. Critics argued that digital services function as monopolies through advertising control and product replication, challenging Delrahim's assertion that these firms have primarily benefited consumers through innovation and low prices. The discussion concluded by exploring regulatory remedies ranging from data portability and interoperability to potential common carrier status should antitrust enforcement fail to restore competition.