Can corporations be trusted after regulations are eased during the pandemic?

Johns Hopkins University Hub 6/4/20

Around the start of the COVID-19 crisis, U.S. and European government officials decided to relax their usual vigilance of possible collusion among business interests. The authorities took this uncommon action of easing antitrust guidelines to in order to promote intercorporate cooperation to manufacture sorely needed supplies in the fight against the pandemic, especially medical equipment.

Economist Valerie Suslow, a professor and the vice dean of faculty and research at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, has devoted years of study to industrial organization, with a focus on the causes, tactics, and repercussions of cartel activity—or the activity of similarly interested corporations. Suslow and her frequent research collaborator, University of Michigan economist Margaret Levenstein, discuss the implications of easing antitrust regulations during the pandemic—both the positive and negative.

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