Kristian Stout Image

Kristian Stout

is ICLE’s Director of Innovation Policy and an expert in intellectual property, antitrust, telecommunications, and Internet governance. Kristian has been a Fellow at the Internet Law & Policy Foundry, as well as the Eagleton Institute of Politics. Before practicing law, Kristian worked as a technology entrepreneur and a lecturer in the Computer Science Department at Rutgers University. Kristian currently serves on the board of the New Jersey Leadership Program, and is the Chair of the Asset Forfeiture Working Group for the NJ State Advisory Committee to the United States Commisison on Civil Rights. He has previously served on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee for the Federal Communications Commission. Kristian graduated magna cum laude from the Rutgers University School of law, and served on the editorial board of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Recent Articles by Kristian Stout

The Biden Executive Order’s Restraint on Freedom of Contract: Regulation by Anecdote May Lead to Unintended Consequences

Capping months of anticipation, President Joe Biden on July 9 unveiled his Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, which he argues will “lower prices for families, increase wages for workers, and promote innovation and even faster economic growth.” To achieve these lofty goals, the order prescribes regulatory interventions that interfere with property and contract rights in industry after industry. Undergirding the order is the premise that “competition has weakened in too many markets, denying Americans the benefits of an open economy and widening racial, income, and wealth inequality.” The White House offers only a handful of anecdotes to justify this sweeping conclusion, which remains highly disputed. In fact, few sectors of the U.S. economy are especially concentrated, and many markets that have become concentrated at the national level have become less concentrated at the local level, as national chains open up in more areas.