University of Georgia School of Law professor Laura Phillips-Sawyer recently presented her work “Reassessing Vertical Restraints:  How Global Value Chains Have Rewritten the Boundaries of the Firm” at the Rethinking Economic Regulation conference at King’s College, London. The conference is organized by the Competition Law Center at the George Washington University, as well as by the Dickson Poon School of Law and the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King’s College London.

Below is the conference precis:

In the 1980s and 1990s, countries in Europe and elsewhere embraced a model of the political economy characterised by privatisation, market competition, and politically-insulated economic regulation. Yet, whilst this model may have performed well on some narrow and aggregate-level objectives, it has raised concerns about unequal outcomes, lack of investment, and market failure, especially in the utility sectors. These concerns have prompted ad hoc policy changes and calls for select re-nationalisation. Yet, what is missing from the debate is a wider systemic analysis of the underlying causes of the disappointing outcomes. This two-day workshop brings together an inter-disciplinary group of established and emerging scholars – in particular, lawyers, economists, historians, and political scientists – who centre on the different causes of the failings of the now dominant political-economic model. The workshop facilitates knowledge production and exchange and will contribute to the production of a special issue on the wider theme.

Phillips-Sawyer is an expert in U.S. antitrust law and policy. Broadly, she is interested in questions of economic regulation, which intersect with legal history, economic thought, business strategy and structure, and political organization. She currently holds the Jane W. Wilson Associate Professorship in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law.