Spring/Summer 2025

Tracking the developments in the fields of law and economics, public policy, and business strategy.

From the Editor-in-Chief

Greetings from Secretariat, and welcome to the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Economists Ink.

Whether you are an economist, attorney, antitrust enthusiast, or just curious about Secretariat, we are glad you found us. This publication showcases insights from leading economists about recent developments in law and economics that may significantly impact the field of antitrust. This issue explores recent topics in the economics of antitrust analysis, with implications for merger analysis, market definition, and anticompetitive conduct.

In the first article of this issue, Dr. Pablo Varas covers important economic lessons from the abandoned deal between Novant Health and Community Hospital Systems in North Carolina. This article highlights aspects of the deal that differed from more typical healthcare acquisitions and explores how they may impact proposed mergers going forward.

In the second article, Dr. Kira Stearns reflects on the recent move toward considering quality changes in analyses of anticompetitive harm and market definition. Emphasizing product or service quality in addition to, or instead of, price may change the nature of these analyses, especially in digital markets, where many products and services have prices of zero. This move may also lead to different conclusions when analyzing market definition for multi-featured products.

In the third article, Drs. Stephanie Khoury and Nathan Mather carefully explain how a platform’s most-favored nation (“PMFN”) agreement may lead to antitrust concerns and identify the considerations that should be analyzed to ultimately determine the direction of their competitive effects. As PMFNs have received increased scrutiny in several ongoing antitrust matters, it is important to understand when and how these agreements may be deemed anticompetitive.

This issue also features reflections from Dr. Jéssica Dutra about recent advancements in econometrics, which have shown that the classic formulation of the difference-in-differences (DiD) design often used in antitrust analysis may yield a miscalculated magnitude of the alleged anticompetitive effect. By choosing the appropriate specification, antitrust experts can ensure that antitrust enforcement remains grounded in sound economic principles and evidence-based reasoning.

We hope you find the articles and news featured in this issue insightful. You can stay up to date on the latest from Secretariat’s economists by also following us on LinkedIn.

Best,

Jéssica Dutra
Kira Stearns

Credits

Editors-in-Chief

Contributors

This issue’s highlights

Featured Article

Economic Lessons from the Novant Health CHS Drama

by Pablo Varas

The abandoned transaction between Novant Health (Novant) and Community Hospital System (CHS) for two North Carolina (NC) hospitals received substantial attention from the media, lawyers, and economists. Even though an initial district court ruling rejected FTC’s preliminary injunction request, a subsequent court decision pushed the parties to abandon the deal.

Featured Article

Quality Considerations in the Economic Analysis of Market Definition

by Kira Stearns

In Antitrust analysis in the United States, the Small but Significant Non-Transitory Increase in Price (“SSNIP”) test is often a key component of market definition analysis, whether performed quantitatively or qualitatively. In this analysis, an entity is hypothesized to be a monopolist with respect to a product or set of products that are under consideration […]

Featured Article

PMFNs and Competition

by Stephanie Khoury, Nathan Mather

However, more generally, MFNs can also apply to vertical agreements between suppliers and buyers, where, for example, a seller promises a buyer that the buyer will always be offered the lowest price offered by the seller.2 While the exact details of these provisions differ by contract, parties, and setting, MFN clauses generally require that one […]

Featured Article

Understanding Difference-in-Differences and Choosing The Best Tool For Antitrust Economic Analyses

by Jéssica Dutra

Difference-in-Differences (DiD) analysis has been a popular method in econometrics for estimating causal effects and is often employed in antitrust litigation. The essence of DiD lies in comparing the changes in outcome variables of interest (e.g., price) over time between a group that is exposed to the alleged anticompetitive conduct and a control group that […]

Featured Article

Litigating the Impact of Race: Lessons from SFFA v. U.S. Naval Academy

by Stuart Gurrea, Jéssica Dutra, William Schwartz

The court concluded in this case, which plaintiff Students for Fair Admissions has appealed, that relying solely on a subset of the information that USNA considered in its holistic admissions reviews likely leads to overstated estimates of the impact of race and ethnicity on USNA’s admissions decisions. The ruling explores the bounds on the probative […]

Featured Article

News and Notes

In Landmark United States v. Google Decision, Secretariat Experts Support Expert Witness on behalf of Successful US Plaintiffs. In the August 2024 landmark United States v. Google decision, Secretariat’s Antitrust team, led by Dr. Keith Waehrer, played a vital role in supporting the analysis and work of expert witness Dr. Kinshuk Jerath on behalf of the successful US plaintiffs.