Showing results for: “premium natural and organic”
Amazon/Whole Foods: What Me Worry?
Brandeis is back, with today’s neo-Brandeisians reflexively opposing virtually all mergers involving large firms. For them, industry concentration has grown to crisis proportions and breaking up big companies should be the animating goal not just of antitrust policy but of U.S. economic policy generally. The key to understanding the neo-Brandeisian opposition to the Whole Foods/Amazon mergers is that it has nothing to do with consumer welfare, and everything to do with a large firm animus. Sabeel Rahman, a Roosevelt Institute scholar, concedes that big firms give us higher productivity, and hence lower prices, but he dismisses the value of that. He writes, “If consumer prices are our only concern, it is hard to see how Amazon, Comcast, and companies such as Uber need regulation.” And this gets to the key point regarding most of the opposition to the merger: it had nothing to do with concerns about monopolistic effects on economic efficiency or consumer prices. It had everything to do with opposition to big firm for the sole reason that they are big.
The folly of the FTC’s Section Five case against Google
In the past weeks, the chatter surrounding a possible FTC antitrust case against Google has risen in volume, thanks largely to the FTC’s hiring of litigator Beth Wilkinson. The question remains, however, what this aggressive move portends and, more importantly, why the FTC is taking it. It is worth noting at the outset that, as ... The folly of the FTC’s Section Five case against Google
Whole Foods? Seriously? Why Are We Talking About Whole Foods?
So why this deal, in this symposium, and why now? The best substantive reason I could think of is admittedly one that I personally find important. As I said, I think we should take it much more seriously as a general matter, especially in highly dynamic contexts like Silicon Valley. There has been a history of arguably pre-emptive, market-occupying vertical and conglomerate acquisitions, by big firms of smaller ones that are technologically or otherwise disruptive. The idea is that the big firms sit back and wait as some new market develops in some adjacent sector. When that new market ripens to the point of real promise, the big firm buys some significant incumbent player. The aim is not. just to facilitate its own benevolent, wholesome entry, but to set up hopefully prohibitive challenges to other de novo entrants. Love it or leave it, that theory plausibly characterizes lots and lots of acquisitions in recent decades that secured easy antitrust approval, precisely because they weren’t obviously, presently horizontal. Many people think that is true of some of Amazon’s many acquisitions, like its notoriously aggressive, near-hostile takeover of Diapers.com.
Direct public offerings, free writing prospectuses, Vonage, and SOX
Back in 2001 I published an article entitled Going Public Through an Internet Direct Public Offering: A Sensible Alternative for Small Companies? DPOs had been (and continue to be) touted as a financing alternative for a small company that needs capital but can’t attract angel or VC financing or an underwriter to take it public. ... Direct public offerings, free writing prospectuses, Vonage, and SOX
Paul Rubin’s new book: The Capitalism Paradox: How Cooperation Enables Free Market Competition
Longtime TOTM blogger, Paul Rubin, has a new book now available for preorder on Amazon. The book’s description reads: In spite of its numerous obvious failures, many presidential candidates and voters are in favor of a socialist system for the United States. Socialism is consistent with our primitive evolved preferences, but not with a modern ... Paul Rubin’s new book: The Capitalism Paradox: How Cooperation Enables Free Market Competition
The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker (2.0)
My colleague Tom Hazlett strikes again in Barron’s on Google’s transformation from its initial reluctance to advertise and its desire to stick to the non-profit sector to an unrelenting market driven approach to its discovery that search-term clicks were … well … profitable. Here’s Hazlett: They discovered that Google’s clean page layout provided a clean ... The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker (2.0)
Shining the Light of Economics on the Google Case
The U.S. Justice Department has presented its evidence in the antitrust case alleging that Google unlawfully maintained a monopoly over “general search services” by “lock[ing] up distribution channels” through “exclusionary agreements” with makers and marketers of devices. Google’s agreements with Apple, for example, have made its search engine the default in Apple’s Safari browser. The ... Shining the Light of Economics on the Google Case
My New Empirical Study on Defining and Measuring Search Bias
Tomorrow is the deadline for Eric Schmidt to send his replies to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s follow up questions from his appearance at a hearing on Google antitrust issues last month. At the hearing, not surprisingly, search neutrality was a hot topic, with representatives from the likes of Yelp and Nextag, as well as Expedia’s ... My New Empirical Study on Defining and Measuring Search Bias
What Has Big Tech Ever Done for Us? Part I
[TOTM: The following is part of a blog series by TOTM guests and authors on the law, economics, and policy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The entire series of posts is available here. This post is authored by Dirk Auer, (Senior Fellow of Law & Economics, International Center for Law & Economics).] Republican Senator Josh ... What Has Big Tech Ever Done for Us? Part I
The EU tightens the noose around Google
Here we go again. The European Commission is after Google more formally than a few months ago (but not yet having issued a Statement of Objections). For background on the single-firm antitrust issues surrounding Google I modestly recommend my paper with Josh, Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against ... The EU tightens the noose around Google
Facebook and the Pros and Cons of Ex Post Merger Reviews
The Federal Trade Commission and 46 state attorneys general (along with the District of Columbia and the Territory of Guam) filed their long-awaited complaints against Facebook Dec. 9. The crux of the arguments in both lawsuits is that Facebook pursued a series of acquisitions over the past decade that aimed to cement its prominent position ... Facebook and the Pros and Cons of Ex Post Merger Reviews
Online Display Advertising: What’s the relevant market?
Digital advertising is the economic backbone of the Internet. It allows websites and apps to monetize their userbase without having to charge them fees, while the emergence of targeted ads allows this to be accomplished affordably and with less wasted time wasted. This advertising is facilitated by intermediaries using the “adtech stack,” through which advertisers ... Online Display Advertising: What’s the relevant market?
