The Archives

The collection of all scholarly commentary on law, economics, and more

Showing results for:  “price gouging”

FairSearch’s Non-Sequitur Response

Our search neutrality paper has received some recent attention.  While the initial response from Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal was favorable, critics are now voicing their responses.  Although we appreciate FairSearch’s attempt to engage with our paper’s central claims, its response is really little more than an extended non-sequitur and fails to contribute ... FairSearch’s Non-Sequitur Response

The NYT misses the point about law schools

Today’s NYT is among the last news outlets in the universe to discover the story of legal education being overpriced for today’s job market. The article tells the tale of how NYLS’s outgoing Dean Richard Matasar, after years of lecturing about the need to reform legal education to better address its market, succumbs to legal ... The NYT misses the point about law schools

Bainbridge’s e-book experiment

Steve Bainbridge is offering his new book, Directors as Auctioneers: A Concise Guide to Revlon-Land, as a Kindle eBook. Here’s his discussion of the book and of his decision to go the e-book route.  I’ve bought it already and presumably will have it when I turn my Kindle on. Steve’s reasoning is plausible:  he gets ... Bainbridge’s e-book experiment

Searching for Antitrust Remedies, Part II

In the last post, I discussed possible characterizations of Google’s conduct for purposes of antitrust analysis.  A firm grasp of the economic implications of the different conceptualizations of Google’s conduct is a necessary – but not sufficient – precondition for appreciating the inconsistencies underlying the proposed remedies for Google’s alleged competitive harms.  In this post, ... Searching for Antitrust Remedies, Part II

FCC Competition Report is one green light for AT&T-T-Mobile deal

BY LARRY DOWNES AND GEOFFREY A. MANNE The FCC published in June its annual report on the state of competition in the mobile services marketplace. Under ordinary circumstances, this 300-plus page tome would sit quietly on the shelf, since, like last year’s report, it ‘‘makes no formal finding as to whether there is, or is ... FCC Competition Report is one green light for AT&T-T-Mobile deal

The Efficiency of Cable Bundling

As I noted in a post last month, the Ninth Circuit recently threw out an antitrust challenge to cable operators’ refusal to provide cable channels on an a la carte, rather than bundled, basis.  (Josh also had some insightful comments on the Ninth Circuit’s Brantley decision.)  In my post, I promised that I would later ... The Efficiency of Cable Bundling

“Argentina’s government has filed criminal charges against the managers of an economic consulting firm, escalating its persecution of independent economists.”

Some context (HT: WSJ): The criminal complaint, initiated by the Commerce Secretariat, is the harshest in a series of legal measures against economists. The credibility of Indec’s data has been questioned ever since former President Nestor Kirchner replaced longtime civil servants with political appointees in early 2007. So far this year, the Secretariat has fined ... “Argentina’s government has filed criminal charges against the managers of an economic consulting firm, escalating its persecution of independent economists.”

Office Superstores, Again?

FTC v. Staples is a seminal case in modern antitrust analysis of horizontal mergers.  Judge Posner has described it as the economic “coming of age” of merger analysis.   It is also a landmark decision in the development of unilateral effects theories.  Despite the fact that Judge Hogan did not explicitly rely upon the econometric evidence ... Office Superstores, Again?

Banning Executives

From the WSJ: The Department of Health and Human Services this month notified Howard Solomon of Forest Laboratories Inc. that it intends to exclude him from doing business with the federal government. This, in turn, could prevent Forest from selling its drugs to Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration. If the government implements its ban, ... Banning Executives

More on the value of legal education

Ted Seto responds to Brian Tamanaha’s post about the price of legal education. Noting that HLS tuition rose at an annual compound rate of 7.71% from 1973 to 2011 while Cravath’s starting salary rose 6.04% he observes with appropriate caveats that law school tuition does appear to have been inflating at a rate hard to ... More on the value of legal education

The next Silicon Valley?

Don’t laugh.  It’s got a major international airport, cheap housing, major league sports and culture. It’s close to a world class university, great natural areas and another country. The urban pioneers who enriched other cities are increasingly priced out of them, and are mobile.  State and local politicians must actually improve the place in order ... The next Silicon Valley?

Lawyers vs. software

Roger Parloff asks, “can software practice law?” He discusses class litigation over whether the web service LegalZoom.com is illegally practicing law in Missouri by helping users prepare legal documents by posing questions and then providing a customized document based on the user’s answers.  The class plaintiffs don’t claim any injury other than the price they ... Lawyers vs. software