Dr. Martin Gaynor, a professor of Economics and Health Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, was recently appointed the new Director of the Bureau of Economics at the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In this article from the Antitrust Healthcare Chronicle, NERA Senior Consultant Dr. Subramaniam (Subbu) Ramanarayanan examines Dr. Gaynor’s work on healthcare issues and highlights some findings in his research that might have a bearing on how the FTC will review healthcare matters during his tenure. Dr. Ramanarayanan notes that Dr. Gaynor’s academic research has contributed especially to the dialogue on the nature of competition in hospital markets, as well as agency issues in physician services. In particular, Dr. Gaynor has written extensively on the effect of competition (or the lack thereof) on market outcomes, such as prices and quality of medical care. Dr. Ramanarayanan points out that Dr. Gaynor’s appointment to the FTC’s Bureau of Economics indicates that healthcare will continue to be an active area of antitrust intervention and enforcement going forward and offers some thoughts on strategies that might help when presenting merger cases to the FTC.