Here’s the press release. Congratulations to Chairman-to-be Leibowitz.
I also note that this marks the end of Chairman’s Kovacic’s reign at the Commission. On a personal note, I had the pleasure of working for the Chairman during my stint as the FTC Scholar in Residence and consider myself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity. There is simply nobody that has given as much thought to the question of how competition policy enforcement institutions should be designed to achieve their objectives. Don’t believe me? Read this. I hope one that I believe that the Chairman’s quest to make the Commission the “thinking man’s competition agency” will be viewed as amongst his most important contributions. The FTC at 100 program and self-study, the series of conferences on important competition policy issues ranging from RPM to the appropriate scope and application of Section 5, and the new FTC & Northwestern University Microeconomics Conference are among the projects that have Chairman Kovacic’s signature on them.
Congratulations to Chairman and soon to be Commissioner Kovacic for a job well done.
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[rant]
Posner is right, the FTC should be disbanded. Look at the commissioners disgraceful performance in Schering Plough, Rambus, linkLine, Leegin (ie open letter from Harbour).
The only wins they can get are with consent decrees because it costs too much to defend agency actions. Not suprisingly the commissioners have never upheld an ALJ that overturns a complaint that the commissioners bring in the first place. Anyone familiar with “cognitive dissonance” would be able to easily explain why this is.
At least make them bring actions in the Federal Courts like the DOJ does.
[/rant]
True. The RPM workshops are indeed the work of Commissioner Harbour, the Section 5 hearings were the work of other Commissioners, and the Microeconomics conference was the work of Michael Baye and others. I promise I’m not attempting to take any credit away from the work other Commissioners and staff contributed to many of these projects. Just giving it where it is due to the Chairman overseeing the larger enterprise.
No quibbles about the rest, but I believe that the RPM hearings were primarily the work and brainchild of another Commissioner.