Fiona Scott Morton

Fiona M. Scott Morton is an American economist who serves as the Theodore Nierenberg Professor at Yale School of Management.[1] Her research in industrial organization has covered industries including magazines, shipping, pharmaceuticals, and internet retail. She served as associate dean of the Yale School of Management from 2007 to 2010, and she has won the school's teaching award twice.[1]

Fiona Scott Morton
Scott Morton in 2019
InstitutionYale University
Alma materYale University (B.A.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D)

From 2011 to 2012, she served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics at the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division.[2][3][4] In her academic work, she has advocated for the U.S. government's role in ensuring healthy competition in healthcare markets[5] and the tech industry.[6] Scott Morton is a consultant to the competition practice at the economics consulting firm CRA International in parallel with work as professor.[7] Morton Scott is the director of the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale.[8]

Life and education

Scott Morton grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, where she attended the public schools. She graduated from Yale in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude in economics. She then did doctoral study in economics at MIT, receiving a Ph.D. in 1994.

Antitrust work

During her stint at the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division Scott Morton advised President Barack Obama. Barack Obama made promises over that period to protect farmers from the abuses of agribusiness, which are considered to not have had any follow-up by Scott Morton in her function at the State Department.[9]

Scott Morton also oversaw the approval of a number of mergers in the airline industry and event ticketing, that led to the creation of a quasi monopoly, according to observers. However after leaving the government, Scott Morton became vocal about antitrust cases and seemingly in favor of more enforcement.[9] She denounced tech giants for stifling competition.[10] Scott Morton had been labelled as an antitrust crusader by some observers but later media reports revealed her consulting contracts for Amazon and Apple.

In 2023, Morton was reportedly chosen by the European Commission to serve as the commission's top competition economist.[11]

Undisclosed conflict of interest controversy

Scott Morton advised the US House Judiciary Committee in its 2019 probe of tech giants.[8] She contributed to reports critical of Facebook and Google, while not disclosing that Apple and Amazon were her clients.[12]

In 2020, the American Prospect magazine revealed that Scott Morton did not disclose consulting contracts with Apple and Amazon.[13] The article in the American Prospect was written by David Dayen, the journalist who labelled Scott Morton an antitrust crusader a year earlier. Dayen reported that Scott Morton had herself revealed her apparently long-standing consulting work for Apple and consulting work for Amazon that had at that point lasted a year, in a panel where she spoke in 2020.[12]

In another instance, Scott Morton authored an Op-ed advocating against any initiatives to break up Big Tech, without disclosing her ongoing consulting work for Apple.[12] In her defense, Scott Morton stated “I work for companies that I’m comfortable are not breaking the law.”[10]

At the time of the revelations on the undisclosed conflicts of interest, Scott Morton was the director of the Thurman Arnold Project at the Yale University.[12] The project was named in honor of the anti-monopolist Thurman Arnold, who headed the US Antitrust Division during the New Deal era. In the wake of the revelations about Scott Morton's undisclosed conflicts of interest, two fellows of the Thurman Arnold Project, Sanjukta Paul and Stacey Mitchell, resigned.[13] Stacey Mitchell indicated that she resigned because Scott Morton's paid for advisory work for Apple and Amazon made it difficult for the project to achieve its objective and was at odds with the legacy of Thurman Arnold.[14]

The author and critic of monopoly power Zephyr Teachout called for Scott Morton to resign as the director of the Thurman Arnold Project.[13] Scott Morton did not resign and remains the director of the project.

References
  1. "Fiona M. Scott Morton". Yale School of Management. 2013-07-02. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
  2. "Fiona M. Scott Morton". yale.edu. Retrieved April 21, 2017.
  3. "Fiona M. Scott Morton". yale.edu. Retrieved April 21, 2017.
  4. Dayen, David (2019-05-23). "The Radicalization of Fiona Scott Morton". The New Republic. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  5. "Prof. Fiona Scott Morton Outlines Fixes for Healthcare Markets in Congressional Testimony". Yale Insights. 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
  6. "Is antitrust law keeping up?". Yale Insights. 2013-07-12. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
  7. "CRA Our People Fiona Scott Morton". CRA. Retrieved 22 April 2023. Fiona M. Scott Morton is a senior consultant to the Competition Practice at CRA. She is the Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics at the Yale University School of Management where she has been on the faculty since 1999.
  8. Nylen, Leah (25 June 2020). "How U.S. enforcers could take on Google's search monopoly". Politico. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
  9. Dayen, David (23 May 2019). "The Radicalization of Fiona Scott Morton". The New Republic. Retrieved 22 April 2023.
  10. McLaughlin, David (17 July 2023). "Star Critic of Big Tech Has Side Gig Working for Amazon, Apple". Bloomberg. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
  11. Nylen, Leah; Bodoni, Stephanie (2023-04-21). "EU to Tap Former Obama Enforcer as Top Antitrust Economist". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
  12. Dayen, David (20 July 2020). "Fiona, Apple, and Amazon: How Big Tech Pays to Win the Battle of Ideas". The American Prospect. Retrieved 22 April 2023.
  13. Ongweso Jr, Edward (27 July 2020). "Yale Antitrust Scholars Resign Because Director Advises Apple, Amazon". Vice. Retrieved 22 April 2023.
  14. "Stacy Mitchell Resigns Fellowship from Yale's Thurman Arnold Project". Corporate Crime Reporter. 29 July 2023. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
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