Monopoly fighter Lina Khan reframes debate on Amazon and Facebook

Asian scholar says focus on consumer welfare obscures online retailer's power

20201026N Lina Khan

Lina Khan, who challenged the modern U.S. approach to antitrust as a law student in 2017, is now an associate professor of law at Columbia University. (Photo by Shah Ali)

TOMOKO ASHIZUKA, Nikkei staff writer

WASHINGTON -- The dangers of Amazon.com's dominance are "not cognizable" if we continue to assess competition through old and outdated lenses. So wrote a Yale Law School student in 2017.

Lina Khan's paper "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox" noted in game-changing fashion that the current framework of antitrust -- which equates competition with consumer welfare and measures it through price and output -- "fails to capture the architecture of market power in the twenty-first century marketplace."

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