Igor Letina

Public service announcement: there is a number of submission deadlines for conferences in the next ~2 weeks. Get your papers ready.

Are there some tasks that it would be immoral to delegate to machines?
#econsky
marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2026/02/are-...

I had the pleasure of speaking with Chris for this piece on acquihires and the AI exit market.

The evolving regulatory landscape raises important questions about competition, talent mobility, and how innovation gets rewarded. The article does a good job of laying out the key risks and trade-offs.

Planning your summer conference schedule? I've updated my conference list for 2026, with deadlines, dates, locations, and links. You can also download calendar entries. Focus is on general conferences, IO, and theory. Let me know if I've missed something. Link: www.igorletina.com/conferences....

Acquihires: What Economics Tells Regulators | PYMNTS.com Acquihires — deals driven primarily by the acquisition of talent — have often been argued to be relatively harmless features of the startup ecosystem. Yet

Link to the published article (paywalled): pymnts.com/cpi-posts/ac...

PDF: igorletina.com/files/2025_B...

YouTube video by Bloomberg Podcasts FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson Talks Acquihires | Bloomberg Talks

FTC Chair Ferguson recently told Bloomberg that the FTC will review AI acquihires as they would any startup acquisition. This is exactly the approach @jmbenkert.bsky.social, Shuo Liu, and I argued for in a CPI Antitrust Chronicle article last month (links below).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u_h...

We are happy to announce that the inaugural Bern/Linz Innovation & Knowledge (BLInK) Workshop will take place next week at the University of Bern.
Many thanks to @igorletina.bsky.social and @jsndr.bsky.social for putting together a fantastic program.

I don't think AI knows what "intuitively" means.

The Authority imposed a penalty on the acquiring firm. Previously, these acquisitions were not looked at.

*Killer Acquisitions* news: the French Competition Authority has for the first time sanctioned a non-notifiable killer acquisition.

Source: www.clearygottlieb.com/news-and-ins...

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

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YouTube video by CEPR & VideoVox Economics AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers

Next was a jam-packed panel on the competition risks of AI acquihires with @florianederer.bsky.social, @lugaricano.bsky.social, @igorletina.bsky.social, @imarinescu.bsky.social, Hans Zenger, Jonathan Kanter, and @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social at the @cepr.org www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zrS... (4/7)

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles, and Economic Spillovers. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webina... Antitrust agencies are increasingly confronted with “acquihires” of AI start-ups — yet most cases so far have been waved through under the banner of “uncertainty.” A decade ago, similar caution around...

Excited to moderate this panel on "AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers" with the antitrust all-star team of Kanter, Garicano, Marinescu, Letina, and Zenger.

Wednesday, 8 October 2025
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (ET)

Registration:
cepr-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

How about this: whoever has an H1B and an employment contract in the US gets an automatic work permit in Europe. No bureaucracy, no nothing. US firms can simply tell their stranded workers they can work from one of their offices in Europe.

Link: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c3e8...

Very happy to see two of my papers cited in the recent CMA report on "Investment and competition over the business lifecycle."

The report provides an excellent overview of the literature. Thanks to @jschneebacher.bsky.social and coauthors for preparing it!

A new article in the WSJ on reverse acquihires. The main point it makes is that one group that loses out in a reverse acquihire are the employees who are left behind. This will make it more difficult for future startups to attract employees.

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-r...

I've heard from a few people that they use the same approach as you. To me, it appears not to be too much different from just sending the bullet points in the first place.

There are two issues with this. One is that I don't know if I am reading the person's opinion or the chatgpt's opinion. The other is that the prompt is usually much shorter than the output, so that this practice leads to longer e-mails.

I think I also feel like it is not really polite to send AI text to someone and then expect them to read it, especially since AI tends to write too much. I think I'd rather if the person sent me the prompt they used...

I used to love using em-dashes in my prose, but now that it has turned into a chatgtp "tell" I actively avoid it.

A person sends you an e-mail and you notice that it was written by chatgpt. How do you react?

I don't know why, but I tend to have an instinctive negative reaction to it.

Additionally, theory can be a first, cheap test of whether a novel design idea is good and worthwhile to be tested empirically.

But abstract *design* theorizing can be useful.

Empirical work mostly examines institutions, policies and mechanisms that already exist and normally does not generate novel designs. Theory does.

Sources:
- www.reuters.com/technology/m...
- www.reuters.com/technology/a...
- www.reuters.com/technology/a...
- www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
- www.reuters.com/business/goo...

Regarding economic consequences and possible policy implications of acquihires, I have a recent paper (doi.org/10.1016/j.eu...) as do Bar-Isaac, Johnson and Nocke (pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/...).

But there is much that we still don't know and I hope to see more work on the topic!

Compensating equity holders is important for a number of reasons, from eliminating future litigation risk to maintaining good reputation with VCs.

If the buyers were not worried about antitrust scrutiny then they would probably go for a straight acquisition (as big tech did many times in the past before the authorities started scrutinizing startup acquisitions). This is simpler and cleaner for all parties involved.

I think the deals are structured in this way for two reasons: 1) avoiding antitrust scrutiny and 2) compensating startup's equity holders.

In the Meta/Scale AI deal, Meta acquired a minority stake in the startup. Again, this can make economic sense for Meta even if, after key talent has moved to Meta, what remains of the startup is worth very little.