All of the material on our blog is the pure intellectual output of its author. It isn’t hard to tell, from a few quick searches or reads of our academic work, that we have all developed, over long periods of time, our approaches to the issues we discuss and the set of priors (we hope and believe subject to Bayesian updating) from which we begin. None of us has ever changed our views or our analysis for the sake of financial reward (but we acknowledge that this could mean nothing more than that no one has yet offered us enough to do so).
Nevertheless, from time to time we are involved in various ways with individuals, companies, agencies, foundations, think tanks, etc. about which we might write and from whom we may have been offered or received direct or indirect financial support or with whom we have some kind of pre-existing relationship.
Where appropriate, the authors of this blog will disclosure such matters on this page, which we will endeavor to keep up to date. It is up to each individual author to decide which relationships are disclosed and in what fashion.
We cannot promise that every little thing that somebody thinks might have affected our thinking will be disclosed – only regular relationships (other than university affiliations and publishing contracts) where we’re getting paid something more than travel expenses and/or a small honorarium.
Second, and most important, we don’t regard the disclosed relationships as “conflicts”; rather we are making them in the interests of current demands for utter transparency. As noted above, none of us has yet seen fit to sacrifice our own preferences and principles to those of anyone who has offered us money or, say, to whom we may be related. In this there is no “conflict.”
Current Disclosures:
Geoffrey Manne worked for Microsoft between 2006 and 2009, including on antitrust, IP, and general competition issues.
Dirk Auer, Geoffrey Manne, and Kristian Stout are principally employed by, and Eric Fruits and Gus Hurwitz have received financial and in-kind support from, the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE). ICLE, in turn, has received and/or currently receives general financial support from a number of companies that have been discussed on this blog and in the authors’ writings elsewhere, including (but not limited to) Amazon, American Beverage Association, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Intel, MasterCard, Monsanto, MPAA, National Association of Broadcasters, NCTA, SpaceX, TiVo, and Verizon.