2026 · Journal of Competition Law & Economics
ANTITRUST EXTERNALITIES ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUDMA and digital regulationFree copyDiverse Legal and Medical Studies
Abstract
ABSTRACT The outsized economic and political power of leading technology companies has raised growing concerns, culminating in demands to break them up. Most of the scholarly evaluation on such structural remedies focuses, understandably, on antitrust law. But breaking up a tech giant would shape the societies beyond market competition, generating broader positive and negative externalities. This Article examines those externalities, including effects on the innovation ecosystem, data privacy, harmful online content, national security, and democracy. Antitrust doctrine and enforcement today have no principled way to deal with such externalities. Incorporating them into antitrust analysis would present governments with difficult trade-offs without any obvious value-neutral way to reconcile competing policy objectives. But disregarding such externalities may lead to net welfare losses for consumers and the broader society whenever the remedy undermines other social values such as national security. In contrast, antitrust remedies can lead to additional welfare gains whenever the remedy creates positive externalities such as revitalizing democracy. Negative policy externalities may offset or even exceed the benefits of antitrust intervention, whereas positive policy externalities may reinforce the case for antitrust intervention. After identifying key antitrust externalities, this Article outlines a more systematic way to account for them in antitrust doctrine and enforcement.
2026 · Politique étrangère
Comment la technologie redessine l’ordre mondial ↗Free to readFree PDF ↗COVID-19, Geopolitics, Technology, Migration Abstract
Le rôle central des technologies dans la compétition entre grandes puissances alimente une rivalité de plus en plus intense. Autour de l’Intelligence artificielle, les grandes entreprises gagnent un pouvoir inédit qui s’impose aux États et dans la conflictualité internationale elle-même. Les États ne sont pourtant pas dépourvus de moyens de régulation. Dans la compétition internationale, l’Europe dispose de cartes particulières, qu’elle doit jouer, au profit d’une coopération internationale à réinventer.
2025 · SSRN Electronic Journal · preprint
The Limits and Promise of Global Antitrust Law ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUFree copyMerger and Competition Analysis
2025 · Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law
Digital Empires: A Response to Book Reviews ↗International Relations and Foreign Policy
2024 · Journal of International Economic Law
Dynamic diffusion ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUFree copyPolicy Transfer and Learning
Abstract
Abstract Research on legal diffusion typically focuses on laws’ initial adoption and ignores their later evolution. We develop a typology of three subsequent diffusion patterns: convergence, when countries revise laws to move closer to leading regulators; customization, when countries revise laws to move away from leading regulators; and stagnation, when countries cease legislating, leaving initially adopted laws in place. We then propose a general theory suggesting that economic size and geographic distance from leading regulators predict which of the three patterns countries follow. We explore this theory with case studies on the dynamic diffusion of antitrust laws in Russia, Colombia, and Australia.
2024 · Gallimard eBooks · book-chapter
Portrait d'un monde cassé ↗Global History, Politics, and Ideology
2024 · SSRN Electronic Journal · preprint
The False Choice Between Digital Regulation and Innovation ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUDMA and digital regulationFree copyDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
2024 · SSRN Electronic Journal · preprint
How Domestic Institutions Shape the Global Tech War ↗Free copyCOVID-19, Geopolitics, Technology, Migration
2024 · Springer eBooks · conference-paper
“The Brussels Effect” and European Sovereignty ↗European Union Policy and Governance
2024
Portrait d'un monde cassé l'Europe dans l'année des grandes élections ↗Electoral Systems and Political Participation
Abstract
"Par un curieux hasard de calendrier, les citoyens de soixante-seize pays sont appelés aux urnes en 2024. Quatre milliards de personnes, plus de la moitié de l'humanité, seront affectées par les résultats de ces élections. À y regarder de plus près, ce qui frappe n'est pas tant le caractère exceptionnel du climat électoral qui s'est installé sur la planète que sa banalité. Nous sommes entrés en campagne permanente, dans un univers où il n'existe plus aucune différence entre l'agitation et la conflictualité qui caractérisaient autrefois les campagnes électorales et le débat démocratique ordinaire. Nos sociétés sont prises dans une spirale centrifuge, frénétique, où les périodes électorales se confondent avec la normalité du monde cassé que nous habitons - et dont, avec le Grand Continent, nous décryptons les lignes de faille.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
Exporting China’s Digital Authoritarianism through Infrastructure ↗Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 8 turns to examine how China is gaining global influence by building digital infrastructures across the world. Country by country, Chinese tech companies, all with varying ties to the CCP, have built the physical components of digital infrastructures, provided critical telecommunications and e-commerce services, and supplied surveillance technologies along the Digital Silk Road. This chapter shows how Chinese tech companies have made inroads into numerous markets across Asia, Africa, and Latin America and even parts of Europe. China has also gradually assumed control of key positions in relevant international organizations involved in standard setting across technologies, further allowing the Chinese government to entrench its regulatory standards and surveillance practices, and, with that, its values, across the world. Many receiving countries have welcomed Chinese technologies and accompanying regulatory standards as a path toward digital sovereignty and development. For authoritarian governments, an additional motivation has been to gain access to surveillance technologies that they eagerly use toward illiberal ends. The chapter discusses the unease that the US and its allies have regarding the growing sphere of China’s influence yet also acknowledges the difficulties they face in countering that influence.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
The American Market-Driven Regulatory Model ↗DMA and digital regulationDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 1 discusses the American market-driven regulatory model, which centers on protecting free speech, the free internet, and incentives to innovate. This regulatory approach rests on a policy view that places notable faith in markets and embraces a limited role for the government. According to this view, the government needs to step aside to maximize the private sector’s unfettered innovative zeal, except when it comes to protecting national security, including cybersecurity, where the government can and must work alongside private companies. The chapter traces the ideological origins of the US model and shows how the values and principles underlying that model have been deeply entrenched in existing legal frameworks and actual government policy. However, the political winds are turning in the US as well. The public and political leaders are starting to question the virtues of the free internet and the growing role of the largest tech companies in ordering our societies. At the same time, many voices remain skeptical of change and maintain that market-driven values are deeply entrenched in Americans’ institutions and mindsets, making it difficult to reverse the regulatory model that, despite all its limitations and false promises, continues to be associated with tremendous wealth and technological progress.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
The Chinese State-Driven Regulatory Model ↗DMA and digital regulationDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 2 examines the Chinese state-driven regulatory model. It shows how the Chinese government leverages technology to fuel the country’s economic growth and development. In the name of social stability, the government also uses technology as a tool for political control, surveillance, and propaganda, entrenching digital authoritarianism deeply into the Chinese society. These two factors, economic development and social stability, are central to the survival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The chapter engages with criticism of the Chinese regulatory approach, detailing how the state-driven model infringes individual rights and deprives Chinese citizens of key civil liberties. At the same time, it acknowledges that technological breakthroughs can also emerge under a state-driven regulatory model, suggesting that freedom may not be necessary for a dynamic culture of innovation. However, the future of the Chinese tech industry is uncertain. As with the US, the Chinese regulatory model is undergoing a drastic shift as the Chinese government is abandoning its traditionally lax approach toward tech regulation, and forcefully leveraging its powers to crack down on the tech industry in the name of common prosperity while facing little resistance from the industry. This unfolding change further reinforces the core tenet of the state-driven regulatory model by ensuring that the Chinese government, not tech companies, reigns supreme over the digital economy in China.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
The European Rights-Driven Regulatory Model ↗DMA and digital regulationDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 3 brings into view the third major model of digital regulation, the European rights-driven model. The chapter illustrates how the EU asserts its regulatory power in the name of upholding individual and collective rights, protecting democratic values, and ushering in a fair and human-centric digital society. To further these goals, the EU model distributes power away from large tech companies to smaller firms, internet users, and platform workers. The EU often refers to the digital society of rights and values, which, it claims, cannot be realized under the market-based model that permits the exploitation of personal data by tech companies, nor under the state-centric model that permits censorship and surveillance by governments. The EU further engrains those rights and values in binding regulatory instruments, reflecting its belief that digital transformation needs to be firmly anchored in the rule of law and democratic institutions. Despite the many benefits associated with the EU’s regulatory model, the chapter also addresses its shortcomings, including the common criticism that extensive regulation impedes innovation, thereby explaining the EU’s inability to date to produce tech companies akin to those that have emerged and thrived under American and Chinese regulatory models.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
Between Freedom and Control ↗DMA and digital regulationCOVID-19, Geopolitics, Technology, Migration
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 4 specifically examines how American and Chinese tech companies straddle between the market-driven and state-driven regulatory models as they fight vertical battles against the US and Chinese governments, facing increasingly irresolvable regulatory dilemmas. At worst, tech companies are forced to choose which of the models they comply with, while knowing that their compliance with one regulatory model is deemed to violate another. For example, a Chinese tech company listed in the US stock exchange cannot at the same time obey the US government’s request to disclose certain data and the Chinese government’s request not to disclose that same data. Similarly, US tech companies operating in China must acquiesce to the Chinese government’s demands to censor online content, which puts them directly at odds with the American regulatory model emphasizing free speech, and exposes them to criticism among US lawmakers, their US-based customers, and their own employees. These conflicts have grave implications for the companies involved but also for the broader digital economy, as they risk partially decoupling the leading tech ecosystems.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
The Waning Global Influence of American Techno-Libertarianism ↗DMA and digital regulationCybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 7 examines how the US has exported its market-driven ideals primarily through the penetrating influence of its leading tech companies, which have shaped digital economies across the world through their business practices. Private tech companies have thus been key in not just defending the American market-driven ideals at home, but also in universalizing them through the often unmitigated influence they exercise over the digital lives of internet users abroad. The US government has further paved the way for its companies’ global influence by actively promoting its internet freedom agenda as a key element of its foreign policy, urging governments around the world to commit to the economic and political freedoms that underlie the US regulatory model. However, the US model is now becoming a victim of its early success. The outsized influence of the US tech companies and their harmful practices are creating a backlash across jurisdictions. This growing resentment is further contributing to the decline of the US regulatory model and, with that, the dwindling of the influence of the values associated with the most powerful digital empire.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
When Rights, Markets, and Security Collide ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUDMA and digital regulationAI ActDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 6 discusses transatlantic regulatory battles, revealing how the US tech companies and the US government are in a much more tenuous position than widely understood. They have, in fact, over the past years been fighting a two-front battle, not just with China, but also with Europe. One of the most notable areas of transatlantic disagreement relates to data protection, where the EU’s focus on fundamental rights clashes with the US’s focus on national security. This disagreement has become a major obstacle for data flows between the EU and the US. Other dominant conflicts revolve around antitrust policy and digital taxation, both realms where the US government has perceived the EU’s attempts to impose obligations on American tech giants as acts of digital protectionism. However, on many of these issues, the transatlantic gap seems to be gradually closing. The US is conceding that more regulation of the tech industry is needed and thus moving toward the European regulatory approach, paving the way for transatlantic rapprochement and cooperation. What gives an even greater impetus for bridging the remaining transatlantic differences is the EU and US’s shared concern about China’s rise and the impact of that rise on the future of liberal democracy. Both parties acknowledge that their policy differences seem manageable compared to China’s AI-powered mass surveillance, internet censorship, and government propaganda, all of which are antithetical to the values of democracy and freedom that the EU and the US have long embraced at home and championed abroad.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
The Battle for Technological Supremacy ↗COVID-19, Geopolitics, Technology, Migration
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 5 shows how the individual vertical battles discussed in Chapter 4 are now evolving into a broader horizontal conflict between the US and China as the two digital powers are fighting for technological supremacy. Over the past few years, the US has taken a number of measures to restrict China’s access to strategic technologies, citing national security concerns. China is responding in kind, imposing extensive export and investment restrictions on US companies. This ongoing rivalry has also fueled a subsidy race as the US and China both seek to shore up to their capabilities in critical technologies such as semiconductors. Other countries, including those in the EU, are also turning to industrial policy in the midst of the growing US–China tensions and unraveling global supply chains. As a result, the tech war risks entrenching techno-nationalism as a global norm. This can be seen as a victory for the Chinese state-driven model as governments are abandoning the US’s vision of an open, free, and global digital economy. The chapter predicts that the US–China conflict is likely to continue, even intensify. But it also shows how deeply intertwined supply chains and commercial pressures in both the US and China are likely to prevent a full decoupling of US and Chinese technological assets. As a result, the horizontal conflict will remain costly, yet will also feature elements of restraint, ultimately denying both satisfactory resolution and averting a complete balkanization of the digital economy.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
Globalizing European Digital Rights through Regulatory Power ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUDMA and digital regulationAI ActData protectionDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract Chapter 9 moves to examine how the EU has also wielded significant international influence through its digital regulations that have spread across the world. By adopting laws such as the GDPR, the EU often shapes the global business practices of leading tech companies, which often extend these EU regulations across their global business operations in an effort to standardize their products and services worldwide, a phenomenon known as the Brussels Effect. While the GDPR may be the posterchild of the EU’s global regulatory influence, this chapter also shows how antitrust law, regulation of online content, and rules for emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence can be similarly exported through the Brussels Effect. European digital regulations have not only been incorporated into tech companies’ global business practices, but often ingrained in legislation by foreign governments. As democratic governments are turning away from the American market-driven model, they are increasingly embracing the European rights-driven model as an alternative way to govern their digital economies. At the same time, while many foreign stakeholders welcome the EU’s global regulatory power, others criticize the EU for engaging in regulatory imperialism and thus undermining the authority of governments to regulate their digital economies in accordance with their national interests and democratic preferences.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · paratext
Dedication ↗Abstract
Subject Comparative Law Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
Introduction ↗DMA and digital regulationDiverse Legal and Medical Studies
Abstract
Abstract The Introduction sets the stage by laying out the context and the main themes of the book. It explains why the digital economy has become a contested battlefield where regulators around the world are seeking to rein in tech companies that exert outsized influence over societies and lives of individuals. It introduces the concept of “digital empire” and explains why the United States, China, and the European Union can be viewed as the leading jurisdictions shaping the global digital economy. Each digital empire has its own values that explains the way it governs the digital economy, steering the US towards a market-driven regulatory model, China towards a state-driven regulatory model, and the EU towards a rights-driven regulatory model. The introduction also describes how the digital world is characterized by a two-level battle, with governments simultaneously fighting a horizontal battle among themselves and a vertical battle vis-a-vis tech companies. It also explains the main stakes and dynamics characterizing these battles.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · paratext
Copyright Page ↗Abstract
Extract Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · book-chapter
Conclusion ↗DMA and digital regulationDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract The conclusion asks whether the American, the Chinese, or the European regulatory model will prevail in their horizontal battles and quest for global influence, while simultaneously examining whether the tech companies or governments will ultimately triumph in their various vertical battles. It predicts that the European rights-driven regulatory model is likely to prevail over the American market-driven model within the democratic world, while the Chinese regulatory model will limit the EU’s ability to entrench its norms and values outside of the democratic world. The EU model is also haunted by the difficulties of enforcing its regulations against powerful tech companies. In this state of the world, the US needs to decide whether to align itself more closely with the European regulatory model. If the US can be convinced that embracing the European rights-driven model will not impede innovation and compromise its technological progress, this choice to emulate the EU model will be easier to embrace. Ultimately, the most compelling argument for closer transatlantic alignment comes from a shared perception that the US and the EU both need to focus on the battle that matters the most: the battle that will be fought over the fate of liberal democracy. That battle will ultimately determine the soul of the digital economy, defining what kind of society we will live in for years and decades to come, a battle that neither the US nor the EU can afford to lose.
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · paratext
Notes ↗Abstract
Subject Comparative Law Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
2023 · Oxford University Press eBooks · paratext
Acknowledgments ↗Abstract
Subject Comparative Law Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
2023 · book
Digital Empires ↗DMA and digital regulationDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
Abstract Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology examines the ideological origins, societal implications, and the relative global influence of three contrasting regulatory approaches toward the digital economy: the American market-driven regulatory model, the Chinese state-driven regulatory model, and the European rights-driven regulatory model. These three models reflect different theories about the relationship between markets, the state, and individual and collective rights. They also frequently collide in an international domain, leading to a contested battle over the present and future ethos of the digital economy. The book discusses how governments and tech companies navigate these inevitable conflicts that arise when these contrasting regulatory approaches collide in the international domain, ultimately asking which digital empire will prevail in their mutual contest for global influence. These regulatory conflicts take place at the moment of time when digital societies are at an inflection point. The cascade of digital regulation that is now being drafted around the world will be crucial in shaping the digital economy and digital society for years and decades to come. Governments, technology companies, and digital citizens are making important choices that will shape the future ethos of the digital society and define the soul of the digital economy. This book lays bare the choices we face as societies and individuals, explain the forces that shape those choices, and spell out the stakes involved in making those choices.
2023 · eYLS (Yale Law School)
Europe’s Digital Constitution ↗DMA and digital regulationFree copyDigitalization, Law, and Regulation
Abstract
In the United States, European reforms of the digital economy are often met with criticism. Repeatedely, eminent American voices called for an end to Europe’s “techno-nationalism.” However, this common argument focusing on digital protectionism is plausible, yet overly simplistic. Instead, this blog post argues that European digital regulations reflect a host of values that are consistent with the broader European economic and political project. The EU’s digital agenda reflects its manifest commitment to fundamental rights, democracy, fairness, and redistribution, as well as its respect for the rule of law. These normative commitments, and the laws implementing those commitments, can be viewed in aggregate as Europe’s digital constitution.
2023 · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · book-chapter
Can EU merger control resist the turn towards protectionism? ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUMerger controlMerger and Competition Analysis
Abstract
This chapter examines whether the EU merger control has been, or will likely be, deployed towards protectionist ends. The European Commission has frequently been accused of deliberately targeting foreign - especially U.S. - acquirers, while facilitating the creation of European national champions. To assess the validity of these claims, this chapter first examines the EU’s past merger enforcement record. An analysis of the over 5,000 mergers reported to the Commission in 1990-2014 reveals no evidence that the Commission would have systematically deployed its authority to advance protectionist goals. The discussion then turns to the present, explaining how some member states are calling for the rethinking of EU competition law through a lens of industrial policy in light of the heightened global competition that European companies are facing. The last part of the chapter cautions against such a change in the EU’s enforcement philosophy and explains why a neutral, non-protectionist merger enforcement is vital for European competitiveness and economic dynamism going forward.
2023 · Harvard Dataverse · dataset
Replication Data for: The Chicago School’s Limited Influence on International Antitrust ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUFree copyMerger and Competition Analysis
Abstract
These files provide replication data and code for the paper "The Chicago School’s Limited Influence on International Antitrust." More information on the broader project is available at: https://comparativecompetitionlaw.org.
2023 · Harvard Dataverse · dataset
Replication Data for: Regulating Antitrust Through Trade Agreements ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUFree copyMerger and Competition Analysis
Abstract
This data verse provides the replication materials for the paper "Anu Bradford and Adam Chilton. 2021. Regulating Antitrust Through Trade Agreements. Antitrust Law Journal 84(1): 103-125." More information on this data and the broader project is available at: http://comparativecompetitionlaw.org.
2023 · SSRN Electronic Journal · preprint
The Gravity of Legal Diffusion ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUFree copyPolicy Transfer and Learning
2023 · eYLS (Yale Law School)
What is at Stake if Antitrust Regulation Fails? ↗Articles 101 and 102 TFEUDMA and digital regulationData protectionDiverse Legal and Medical Studies
Abstract
Momentum for regulating Big Tech is growing across the world. The European Union has been leading this fight for the past decade, frequently leveraging its antitrust laws, data protection laws, and other regulatory instruments to reclaim control over the industry. But the EU is no longer the lone crusader prepared to take on the tech giants. The Chinese government has initiated an unprecedented crackdown on its tech sector in the name of advancing "common prosperity" and ensuring that its tech giants do not overpower the state. The tide may now finally be turning even in the United States, where Congress is reassessing the need to re-write US antitrust laws, enact a federal privacy law, or revisit its absolutist stance on free speech online.