A new report by Committee to Unleash Prosperity economists says an antitrust bill making its way through Congress “will make inflation worse.”
The American Innovation and Choice Online Act is a piece of antitrust legislation introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar, Chuck Grassley, and John Kennedy. The bill’s aim is to reduce the influence of Big Tech and help level the playing field for smaller companies, as well as better serve consumers. According to the report by Dr. Arthur B. Laffer and John Barrington Burke, the bill will actually make things worse for consumers by increasing inflation.
“Allegations of monopolistic pricing behavior in the technology sector are misplaced,” the authors write. “We show that many of the technology companies that would be affected by the antitrust bills before Congress have driven dramatic reductions in prices paid by consumers. The Klobuchar bill could add dramatically to the prices that consumers pay for routine tech services from package deliveries, to cell phones, to search engine services.”
The report makes the case that Big Tech firms are actually not monopolies, with the tech industry being less concentrated than the average US industry. The report also argues that the antitrust legislation before Congress would significantly weaken US tech innovation and cripple the digital economy’s penchant for lowering prices.
This latest report joins a growing chorus of criticism of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act bill. The Independent Women’s Voice said the “bill is not about protecting competition in America, but expanding regulatory control over a handful of large tech corporations, even if to the detriment of consumers.”
Similarly, Amazon has said the bill would severely impact its Amazon Prime service, even going so far as to say the bill primarily targeted the e-commerce giant.
“Oddly, and inappropriately, this legislation is targeted at only one U.S. retailer—Amazon,” the company said.
It remains to be seen if the bill will be passed and signed into law. While there is nearly unprecedented bipartisan support for antitrust legislation, the voices against the bill are certainly stacking up.