Escape Forward: Connecting dots beyond the antitrust island
Escape Forward: Connecting dots beyond the antitrust island
Podcast Description
Antitrust has thrived in the shadows for decades as a technocracy, a church with its own rituals, a lobbyfest pretending to be science. But it is an economic policy tool working alongside others. After a lifetime as antitrust expert economist & one of the original proponents of the “more economic approach” in Europe, Cristina Caffarra discusses with friends in policy and academe why we need to escape the myth competition will deliver “a level playing field, consumer choice and innovation” & move forward to connecting the dots with everything else that matters to growth & prosperity.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on antitrust policies, economic strategies, and their implications for competition and market dynamics, with episodes exploring themes such as the limitations of competition as a means for consumer choice, the role of regulation, and the interconnectedness of economic growth and prosperity.
Antitrust has thrived in the shadows for decades as a technocracy, a church with its own rituals, a lobbyfest pretending to be science. But it is an economic policy tool working alongside others. After a lifetime as antitrust expert economist & one of the original proponents of the “more economic approach” in Europe, Cristina Caffarra discusses with friends in policy and academe why we need to escape the myth competition will deliver “a level playing field, consumer choice and innovation” & move forward to connecting the dots with everything else that matters to growth & prosperity.
Over just a few months, the Trump Administration has unleashed an unexpected array of tools to redress the perceived “burden” carried by the US for security and overvaluation of the dollar, wake up the rest of the world (especially Europe) to the need to “burden share” and push back on China’s march to economic hyperpower.
From tariffs, to control of the Federal Reserve, to support for crypto, to the return of national champions, to taming the traditional media, to dangling a sword of Damocles on Big Tech, and dealmaking on a vast scale – there is a thread connecting all this as America is asserting power at home and abroad. Europe needs to connect the dots, rewriting the rulebook entirely for a hard power world.
Rohit Chopra, former Director of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and FTC Commissioner, joins Cristina Caffarra to discuss how finance, industrial policy and global power are being redefined and what that means for Europe.
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