Showing results for: “digital markets act”
SEC Commissioner Kathleen Casey steps down
Commissioner Casey announced that she is stepping down from the SEC. SEC Commissioner Kathleen L. Casey announced that she is leaving the agency today, having completed her five-year term on June 5 of this year. Commissioner Casey was sworn in on July 17, 2006, and has been a staunch advocate of the agency’s mission to ... SEC Commissioner Kathleen Casey steps down
Biweekly FTC Roundup: Highly Skilled Sandwich Maker Edition
Happy New Year? Right, Happy New Year! The big news from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is all about noncompetes. From what were once the realms of labor and contract law, noncompetes are terms in employment contracts that limit in various ways the ability of an employee to work at a competing firm after separation ... Biweekly FTC Roundup: Highly Skilled Sandwich Maker Edition
Why the Antitrust Realities Support the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger
I have a new article on the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger in the latest edition of the CPI Antitrust Chronicle, which includes several other articles on the merger, as well. In a recent essay, Allen Grunes & Maurice Stucke (who also have an essay in the CPI issue) pose a thought experiment: If Comcast can ... Why the Antitrust Realities Support the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger
Stephen Bainbridge on Mandatory Disclosure: A Behavioral Analysis
Mandatory disclosure is a—maybe the—defining characteristic of U.S. securities regulation. Issuers selling securities in a public offering must file a registration statement with the SEC containing detailed disclosures, and thereafter comply with the periodic disclosure regime. Although the New Deal-era Congresses that adopted the securities laws thought mandated disclosure was an essential element of securities ... Stephen Bainbridge on Mandatory Disclosure: A Behavioral Analysis
Shelf Space Payments and Retail Bargaining Power
At his new blog Management R&D, Luke Froeb writes about the strategy of downstream firms reducing capacity in order to increase competition among suppliers: To gain bargaining power, some firms reduce capacity to increase competition among their suppliers. For example, health insurers restrict the number of drugs on their formularies or the number of hospitals ... Shelf Space Payments and Retail Bargaining Power
Market Definition and the Merger Guidelines, Again
Do the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines require market definition? Will the agencies define markets in cases they bring? Are they required to do so by the Guidelines? By the Clayton Act? Here is Commissioner Rosch in the FTC Annual Report (p.18): “A significant development in 2010 was the issuance of updated Horizontal Merger Guidelines by ... Market Definition and the Merger Guidelines, Again
Telecom regulators: Don’t get rolled by Rewheel
Will the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint make consumers better or worse off? A central question in the review of this merger—as it is in all merger reviews—is the likely effects that the transaction will have on consumers. In this post, we look at one study that opponents of the merger have been using to ... Telecom regulators: Don’t get rolled by Rewheel
Mr. Watson, I Want to See You … About Vertical Mergers and Price Regulation
Jonathan B. Baker, Nancy L. Rose, Steven C. Salop, and Fiona Scott Morton don’t like vertical mergers: Vertical mergers can harm competition, for example, through input foreclosure or customer foreclosure, or by the creation of two-level entry barriers. … Competitive harms from foreclosure can occur from the merged firm exercising its increased bargaining leverage to ... Mr. Watson, I Want to See You … About Vertical Mergers and Price Regulation
Senator Warner’s retrogressive proposals could lead to arbitrary and capricious interventions that would harm entrepreneurs and consumers
Last week, I objected to Senator Warner relying on the flawed AOL/Time Warner merger conditions as a template for tech regulatory policy, but there is a much deeper problem contained in his proposals. Although he does not explicitly say “big is bad” when discussing competition issues, the thrust of much of what he recommends would ... Senator Warner’s retrogressive proposals could lead to arbitrary and capricious interventions that would harm entrepreneurs and consumers
Political Philosophy, Competition, and Competition Law: The Road to and from Neoliberalism, Part 1
The interplay among political philosophy, competition, and competition law remains, with some notable exceptions, understudied in the literature. Indeed, while examinations of the intersection between economics and competition law have taught us much, relatively little has been said about the value frameworks within which different visions of competition and competition law operate. As Ronald Coase ... Political Philosophy, Competition, and Competition Law: The Road to and from Neoliberalism, Part 1
Three from Brad DeLong
Yesterday I criticized Brad DeLong for, essentially, acting like a child. Today I want to draw attention to three posts from Brad DeLong–in none of which does he act like a child. The first is this post, correcting his mistaken ad hominem attack on Glen Weyl. The apology is well-taken. I only wonder where the ... Three from Brad DeLong
American Booksellers Association Advances Bad Antitrust Argument, But Who Can Blame Them?
The WSJ Reports that the American Booksellers Association has knocked on Christine Varney’s door at the Antitrust Division to complain about the new low prices resulting from the price war between Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart. The complaint? In a letter dated Oct. 22, the ABA said it believes that the discount pricing—which has led to ... American Booksellers Association Advances Bad Antitrust Argument, But Who Can Blame Them?
