About
I am pursuing my Ph.D. in Financial Economics at Yale University.
I received my J.D. from Yale Law School in 2021 and graduated summa
cum laude with a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University in 2017.
My research focuses on antitrust law. My secondary fields include
contracts and business organizations.
Research
Misaligned Measures of Control: Private Equity’s Antitrust
Loophole
(with Thomas G. Wollmann and John M. Barrios)
Virginia Law & Business Review (forthcoming)
Agencies and legislators have raised concerns that acquisitions
backed by private equity (PE) threaten competition, but few, if
any, have offered explanations as to why they pose a unique
threat. In this article, we argue that PE-backed acquisitions may
avoid antitrust enforcement because they escape detection. Under
the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, parties
intending to merge must notify federal authorities and wait for
clearance. However, various exemptions exist based on the size of
the transaction, parties involved, and proportion of control
conferred by the merger. Recent work demonstrates that to police
mergers effectively, agencies must be informed about transactions
in their incipiency, meaning that in many economically important
industries, the contours of the premerger notification program
under the Act are, in practice, the same as the contours of the
substantive legal standard. We show that when the Act’s exemptions
are applied to PE’s standard investment structure, which use an
array of intermediate special purpose vehicles to minimize taxes,
share risks, and distribute fees, many PE-backed acquisitions that
would otherwise be reportable are exempt. We support our argument
with merger and filing data.
Can Machines Commit Crimes Under US Antitrust Laws?
(with Thomas G. Wollmann)
The University of Chicago Business Law Review (forthcoming)
Generative artificial intelligence is being rapidly deployed for
corporate tasks including pricing. Suppose one of these machines
communicates with the pricing manager of a competing firm,
proposes to collude, receives assent, and raises price. Is this a
crime under US antitrust laws, and, if so, who is liable? Based on
the observed behavior of the most widely adopted large language
model, we argue that this conduct is imminent, would satisfy the
requirements for agreement and intent under Section 1 of the
Sherman Act, and confer criminal liability to both firms as well
as the pricing manager of the competing firm.
When Do Non-Price Vertical Restraints Become Unreasonable?
Working paper
Intrabrand non-price vertical restraints emerge from agreements between upstream and downstream
firms and impose conditions on the downstream firm’s resale of products. They are prevalent in
the economy, especially in consumer-facing industries. Following the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision
in Sylvania, these restrictions have been subject to the rule of reason. In Sylvania,
the Court noted that these restraints incentivize downstream firms to invest in product launches
and brand promotion. Yet, if one of the main objectives of these restraints is to facilitate
brand building and product introduction, a question arises as to whether they should be revisited
at some point in the product’s lifecycle. This paper argues that intrabrand non-price vertical
restraints should be limited in duration. The initial phase of exclusivity incentivizes downstream
firms to invest in new products and brands. But once these products gain recognition and firms
recoup their investment, exclusivity starts maintaining prices above competitive levels without
offering any countervailing competitive benefits. At this point, these restraints should be found
unreasonable. To substantiate this framework, this paper presents both a novel economic model and
a new empirical study of the exclusive territory provisions in the ready-to-drink beverage industry.
It shows that when third-party distributors violate exclusive territories, prices of both affected
and rival products decrease. Additionally, product sales in the affected territories either experience
an increase or remain stable, suggesting a lack of significant decline in product quality. However,
the breach of the exclusive territories leads to a reduction in product variety, underscoring the
significance of these restraints for downstream investment in new products.
How Do Commercial Banks Leverage Market Power?
(with Jakub Kastl)
Working paper
Cluster products are complementary goods that have reduced
transaction costs when purchased from a single company. These
products are economically important and abundant in markets. A
notable example is the commercial banking products. In this
particular market, consumers arguably select banks rather than
specific banking products, allowing banks to leverage their power
in one product market, such as loans, to set rates in another
product market, such as deposits. Although the concept of cluster
products has roots in seminal Supreme Court decisions from the
1960s, modern regulatory analysis of proposed bank mergers often
overlooks this phenomenon. In this paper, we present a structural
demand and supply model for loans and deposits that accounts for
the complementarity between these commercial banking products. In
our model, banks compete in these two product markets by taking
into consideration the interplay between the demands for both
products. We use our model to predict the impact of actual mergers
on deposit and loan rates charged by and market shares of each
market participant. Subsequently, we compare these predictions to
the rates and shares that were realized after the studied mergers.
Data Markets and Platform Acquisitions
Big Tech companies acquired at least 710 companies since 2000,
whereas US federal regulators and courts did not block any of
these deals. Given these figures, it is reasonable to conclude
that there exists a discrepancy between the industry outlook on
markets and competition, and that of antitrust authorities. This
paper suggests defining markets for consumer data using the
existing U.S. antitrust framework, specifically that of Clayton
Act §7. It shows how existing tools, such as buyer substitution
and “practical indicia” of Brown Shoe, sufficiently define markets
for data that appear to be pivotal in the acquisitions engaged by
internet platforms. It further applies two existing theories of
harm, namely unilateral effects of horizontal merger framework and
foreclosure theory of harm belonging to the vertical merger
framework, to outline the inclusion of data markets and consumer
data products in the modern antitrust analysis of M&A activity by
major internet platforms.
Conferences
America Law and Economics Association Annual Meeting (May 2023)
Misaligned Measures of Control: Private Equity’s Antitrust Loophole
Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (Oct. 2023)
Misaligned Measures of Control: Private Equity’s Antitrust Loophole
How Do Commercial Banks Leverage Market Power?
Cambridge-USC Virtual Antitrust Workshop (Dec. 2023)
When Do Non-Price Vertical Restraints Become Unreasonable?
Media Coverage