We are delighted that Aline Blankertz will be joining our team as Tech Economy Lead from March 1! Aline is an economist and, in addition to her experience in digital and data policy, brings many years of practice in competition economic analysis to us.
Aline Blankertz will primarily be looking at how we can push back and break up the increasingly concentrated power in digital markets and in particular around artificial intelligence. For her, this is an important concern: “We are seeing that developments in economics and economic policy have made it worryingly unpopular to intervene in markets in a smart and evidence-based way and to take action against power. This has clear consequences in the form of enormous inequality, irreversible environmental damage and a further increase in the concentration of power. We must set competition policy levers in motion to finally take countermeasures and make markets democratically manageable again.”
How can we use existing instruments to limit the power of tech giants and reverse the trend towards more dependence on them in other sectors of the economy? What else do we need? Which analyses and which (new) instruments can help to prevent such market power in the future? We will address these questions as part of the project “From monopolies to diversity and the common good: a new competition policy for AI and tech”. The project is made possible by funding from Stiftung Mercator GmbH.
For the latest news from the project and our work, please subscribe to our newsletter:
