Digital Economy and Inequality (Part I) - Transatlantic Seminar

Feb. 9, 2022
10:00AM - 12:00PM
Online
Open to the Public

The digital economy poses unprecedented challenges regarding the accumulation of market power and the potential harm caused to economic and social relations. Mounting concerns about these phenomena trigger intense academic and political discussions, both regionally and globally. The two forthcoming sessions of the Transatlantic Seminar: Consumer Law, Technology and Inequality (9 and 16 February) try to grapple with these challenges from a novel perspective. They focus on the interdependence between big tech companies and social inequality – and hence ask the pivotal question how antitrust and consumer law can entrench or combat unequal allocation of wealth and social disparities in digital markets. The two seminars gather prominent scholars and policymakers from Europe and the US. In so doing, they attempt to identify the common links between big tech and social inequality on both sides of the Atlantic, and the common prospects for remedying them.

Speakers for Part I will be:
Yochai Benkler (Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University)
Michael Kades (Director for markets and competition policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth)
Vanessa Mak (Professor, chair in civil law at Leiden University)
Andreas Mundt (former president of the German Federal Competition Agency, member of the Bureau of the OECD Competition Committee and of the Steering Group Chair of the International Competition Network)

Moderation: Mateusz Grochowski (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law)

About the Seminar series: The Transatlantic Seminar on Consumer Law, Technology, and Inequality sets forth to analyze the intersections of digitalization and growing socioeconomic inequalities. The seminar seeks to create a space for sharing knowledge, ideas, and experience across geographic and professional boundaries, with a special emphasis on bringing US and European scholars, policy-makers, and social activists together. Each session will combine speakers who rarely appear together but share interests at the intersections of law, economics, and society.

Registration via the link on the event website is required.

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law - Yale Law School Center for the Study of Private Law - Jagiellonian University in Cracow - Free University in Berlin - European University Institute in Florence