Showing results for: “price gouging”
Using Antitrust to Tax Consumers is a Bad Idea Even If You Really, Really Want "True" Interoperability
There is some antitrust buzz in the air after Steve Job’s “Thoughts on Music,” which discussed the possibility of eliminating DRM entirely. The real antitrust story, I suspect, is whether the rather transparent attempt to shift the gaze of regulators fixated on the iPod/iTunes combo to the big four’s “refusal” to go DRM-free will have ... Using Antitrust to Tax Consumers is a Bad Idea Even If You Really, Really Want "True" Interoperability
Is There Really Less Securities Fraud? And If So, Should We Thank the Feds?
Securities fraud class-actions are down. In an op-ed in yesterday’s WSJ, Joseph Grundfest observed that both the number of such actions and the dollar value of total damages claims have dropped dramatically since mid-2005. Why has this decline occurred? Grundfest considers several possible reasons. First, the decline might be due to the criminal prosecution of ... Is There Really Less Securities Fraud? And If So, Should We Thank the Feds?
Let Ethanol Fail
The recent State of the Union address, in which President Bush called for an almost 500% increase in alternative fuel consumption by 2017, once again turned the nation’s attention to the various elixirs that promise to make the U.S. “energy independent.” The closer we look, though, the less appealing the leading alternative fuel — ethanol ... Let Ethanol Fail
Henry Manne and Corporate Democracy
On January 2, 2007, Dean Henry Manne published a column in the WSJ regarding corporate democracy. In this column, Manne takes a stab at shareholder voting and corporate democracy. Manne maintains that shareholder activists are deluding themselves with the phrase “corporate democracy” in that only the controlling s/h have and will ever have a true voice ... Henry Manne and Corporate Democracy
AMC Releases Tentative Recommendations
The tentative recommendations of the Antitrust Modernization Committee are out, and include Commissioner vote counts for various propositions. The recommendations largely take the form of propositions that the AMC Commissioners joined, did not join, or were undetermined. Here are a few that caught my eye on an initial read-through (note that 2-5 apply to merger ... AMC Releases Tentative Recommendations
Antitrust Superprecedent
Shubha Ghosh, of the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog, is predicting that the Supreme Court will not overrule the 1911 Dr. Miles decision, which holds that “vertical minimum resale price maintenance” (i.e., a manufacturer’s imposition of minimum resale price for his goods) is per se illegal. Ghosh explains: [T]he grant of cert in Leegin is ... Antitrust Superprecedent
Revisiting Two Classics as the New Semester Begins
Last Friday was the first day of my Business Organizations class. We began with two articles that have profoundly influenced my thinking about the world in general and the business world in particular. To inaugurate the new semester, I thought I’d take a moment and pay tribute to the insights in those articles (and solicit ... Revisiting Two Classics as the New Semester Begins
A Few Things Economics is Good For …
Professor D’Amato is at it again. And by “it,” I mean making overblown claims that economics is useless (you might recall our last exchange where I responded to his mistaken assertion that economics had not changed antitrust in “any noticeable way”). Here’s his latest from a comment over at Prawfs. Well, what exactly is economics ... A Few Things Economics is Good For …
Manne on Shareholder Democracy
Henry Manne is back with another article in the WSJ. This time Manne goes toe-to-toe with the “corporate democrats.” Profs Ribstein (“Shareholder democracy is just one of the burdens that public corporations have to bear these days”) and Bainbridge (“it’s a brilliant spanking of the shareholder activists, which I highly commend to your attention”) have ... Manne on Shareholder Democracy
Warren on Rationality, Choice, and Regulation in the Credit Card Market
Elizabeth Warren (Credit Slips) points to an interesting empirical study by Agarwal, Liu, Souleses, and Chomsisengphet (“ALSC”) which examines consumer credit card selection in a natural experiment setting in which a card company offers two cards to consumers: (1) a high interest rate, no annual fee card and (2) a low rate card with an ... Warren on Rationality, Choice, and Regulation in the Credit Card Market
The Economics of Customer Service
Is the retail customer willing to pay for customer service? Gaggles of books have been written on the topic of customer service, and those books sell based on the belief that customers *care* about customer service. But do they? Do we? Do I? The idea that somehow customer service matters to the customer is not ... The Economics of Customer Service
Investing for Joe Common Man/Gal
The Nowicki family Christmas dinner was tonight. Michelle, the Nowicki family psychiatrist, said (to my FATHER, not me, the securities wonk) “How do I know what stock to invest in? I don’t follow the market. I don’t watch the stock shows on MSNBC. Jim Cramer – the mad money guy – all of that.” After ... Investing for Joe Common Man/Gal
