John Asker

Armen A. Alchian Chair in Economic Theory and Professor of Economics,
University of California, Los Angeles;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research

For more information, contact:

  • Rahul Guha
  • Kostis Hatzitaskos

or any member of our senior staff.

Education

John Asker is a leading expert in antitrust and competition economics. Professor Asker focuses on topics related to antitrust policy, cartel behavior, vertical restraints, auction design, firm-level productivity, industry subsidy effects, and artificial intelligence (AI) pricing mechanisms. He also has experience with issues at the intersection of financial markets and antitrust.

An experienced expert witness, he has provided testimony in numerous high-profile matters. Counsel for Meta retained Professor Asker to assess competitive effects in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) review of Meta’s $1 billion acquisition of Kustomer. He was retained by counsel for SoftBank and Sprint Corporation in the $26 billion T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Professor Asker provided written testimony to the World Trade Organization on behalf of the Canadian government in the U.S.–Canada softwood lumber dispute.

Professor Asker has served as an economic consultant to both federal and state regulatory agencies. In the AT&T/DirecTV merger, he served as an expert for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. Department of Justice retained him to evaluate potential competitive effects of the then-proposed merger between Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont. He has coauthored several amicus briefs presented before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate courts.

Professor Asker is an editor of the Journal of Political Economy. He has also held editorial positions at the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, the RAND Journal of Economics, and the Journal of Industrial Economics. His research has been published in leading economics journals, including the Journal of Political Economy and the American Economic Review. Who’s Who Legal has named Professor Asker as a leading competition economist, as well as a Thought Leader and Future Leader in the competition field. Global Competition Review recognized him in its inaugural list of the world’s most important antitrust academics.

Professor Asker has taught courses in antitrust policy, industrial organization, and strategy. He also speaks on antitrust topics, including to U.S. federal agencies, and has been a visiting scholar at the FTC’s Bureau of Economics, the Department of Economics at Harvard, and Yale Law School.

Before joining the UCLA faculty, Professor Asker was an associate professor of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Press Release

Cornerstone Research Named in GCR 2023 Matter of the Year

Event

FinTech Series: Emerging Economic Issues in Cryptocurrency Litigation

Case

EFN West Palm Motor Sales LLC v. Hyundai Motor America Corp. et al.

Press Release

Cornerstone Research Affiliated Experts Named to Global Competition Review’s Inaugural List of Leading Antitrust Academics

Article

Antitrust Expert Spotlight: John Asker

Press Release

WWL: Global Leader Competition—Economists 2022

Press Release

2022 WWL: Thought Leaders–Competition

Press Release

Cornerstone Research Staff and Affiliated Experts Submit Comments to the Joint FTC-DOJ Inquiry on Merger Enforcement

  • “Antitrust Economics for Young (and Old) Lawyers,” 42nd Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, Fordham University School of Law, 30 September 2015
  • “The AT&T–DirecTV Transaction,” Eighth Annual Searle Center Conference on Antitrust Economics and Competition Policy, Northwestern University, 18 September 2015
  • “Multiproduct-Firm Oligopoly: An Aggregate Games Approach,” Eighth Annual Searle Center Conference on Antitrust Economics and Competition Policy, Northwestern University, 18 September 2015
  • Seventh Annual Federal Trade Commission Microeconomics Conference, 16 October 2014