Alden Abbott and Andrew Mercado

January 26, 2022 | Healthcare

During the first year of the Biden administration, competition policy underwent several significant developments. “Competition policy” refers broadly to a new and unique set of actions pursued by the Biden administration to improve market competition: whereas past administrations relied almost exclusively on antitrust enforcement actions to rein in anticompetitive conduct, the Biden administration is also placing an emphasis on regulatory actions. Through a series of appointments, an executive order, and legislative proposals in Congress, this administration has demonstrated a belief that government should harness regulatory power to intervene directly in markets that are insufficiently competitive.

Matthew D. Mitchell

January 16, 2022 | Healthcare

The process for obtaining a CON can sometimes take years and cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in preparation costs. These regulations appear to benefit incumbent providers by limiting their competition; their effects on patients and taxpayers, however, have generally been found to be negative. This finding helps explain why antitrust authorities at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and at the US Department of Justice (DOJ) have long taken the position that these rules are anticompetitive.

Salim Furth

January 25, 2022 | Urban Economics

For a century, zoning has been the quintessential form of land use regulation in the United States. But in Maine, at least 200 towns continue to regulate land use without dividing their territory into districts subject to differing regulation. I use qualitative and statistical methods to investigate the causes and effects of persistent nonzoning in Maine. Unzoned towns are typically smaller and have less commercial development pressure. Unzoned towns are neither more nor less strict than similar, zoned neighbors. Nonspatial regulation is a sustainable alternative to zoning for small Maine towns.