Overlapping Financial Investor Ownership, Market Power, and Antitrust Enforcement: My Qualified Agreement with Professor Elhauge

129 Harvard L.Rev. F. 212 (2016)

21 Pages Posted: 13 Mar 2016

See all articles by Jonathan B. Baker

Jonathan B. Baker

American University - Washington College of Law

Date Written: March 10, 2016

Abstract

As is well known among financial economists but not previously recognized within the antitrust community, large and diversified institutional investors such as BlackRock, Fidelity, State Street, and Vanguard collectively own roughly two-thirds of the shares of publicly traded U.S. firms overall, up from about one-third in 1980. Recent economic research involving airlines and banking raises the possibility that overlapping ownership of horizontal rivals by diversified financial institutions facilitates anticompetitive conduct throughout the economy, and that the problem has been growing for decades, unnoticed until now. This response to an article by Professor Einer Elhauge, explains why it may be more difficult to address overlapping financial investor ownership under the antitrust laws than Elhauge recognizes.

Keywords: antitrust, overlapping financial investor ownership, market power

JEL Classification: K21, L41, G2

Suggested Citation

Baker, Jonathan B., Overlapping Financial Investor Ownership, Market Power, and Antitrust Enforcement: My Qualified Agreement with Professor Elhauge (March 10, 2016). 129 Harvard L.Rev. F. 212 (2016) , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2746874 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2746874

Jonathan B. Baker (Contact Author)

American University - Washington College of Law ( email )

4300 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
United States
202-274-4315 (Phone)

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