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Florian Ederer and Song Ma

Profs. Florian Ederer and Song Ma Receive Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship

The award recognizes their paper “Killer Acquisitions” as among the best writing on antitrust in 2021.

Professors Florian Ederer and Song Ma have received the 20th annual Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship for their article “Killer Acquisitions,” co-authored with Colleen Cunningham of London Business School. The award was presented to the trio at the American Antitrust Institute conference and is administered by the law firm Cohen Milstein.

The award is presented annually to recognize the best antitrust writing during the prior year. Submissions “should reflect a concern for principles of economic justice, the dispersal of economic power, the maintenance of effective limitations upon economic power, or the federal statutes designed to protect society from various forms of anticompetitive activity.”

“Killer Acquisitions,” published in the Journal of Political Economy, finds that firms frequently acquire rivals in order to discontinue the development of products that pose a competitive threat. Ederer and Ma have garnered several awards for the paper since its publication in 2020, including the Robert F. Lanzilloti Prize for the best paper in antitrust economics at the 18th annual International Industrial Organization conference and the 2020 AdC Competition Policy Award. In addition, it was cited in a high-profile congressional report on anti-competitive behavior by major technology firms.

Watch Ederer and Ma discuss “Killer Acquisitions.”