Henry B. McFarland recently spoke on a panel discussing the recent case the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division brought against American Express. The panel discussion was sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section. His remarks focused on economic arguments concerning market definition and market power and on the effects of the court’s decision on the future of the payment card industry.
Dr. McFarland subsequently published a paper on the case, “Economic Arguments in the Amex Trial: Considering Market Definition and Market Power with a Two-Sided Platform,” in Trying Antitrust. That paper focuses on two questions of particular concern in the litigation. First, how were markets defined given that the litigation dealt with a two-sided platform? Second, how was evidence concerning market structure and pricing behavior used in assessing possible market power of a two-sided platform? It is available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2587138.