Showing results for: “digital markets act”
AT&T-Time Warner merger approved
AT&T’s merger with Time Warner has lead to one of the most important, but least interesting, antitrust trials in recent history. The merger itself is somewhat unimportant to consumers. It’s about a close to a “pure” vertical merger as we can get in today’s world and would not lead to a measurable increase in prices ... AT&T-Time Warner merger approved
More on a possible Comcast/Fox deal: Reports of the death of vertical mergers have been greatly exaggerated
A few weeks ago I posted a preliminary assessment of the relative antitrust risk of a Comcast vs Disney purchase of 21st Century Fox assets. (Also available in pdf as an ICLE Issue brief, here). On the eve of Judge Leon’s decision in the AT&T/Time Warner merger case, it seems worthwhile to supplement that assessment by ... More on a possible Comcast/Fox deal: Reports of the death of vertical mergers have been greatly exaggerated
Canadian Site Blocking Proposal Is a Good Experiment in Controlling Piracy
In an ideal world, it would not be necessary to block websites in order to combat piracy. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world in which enormous amounts of content—from books and software to movies and music—is being distributed illegally. As a result, content creators and owners are ... Canadian Site Blocking Proposal Is a Good Experiment in Controlling Piracy
Problems with Proposed Solutions to the Common Ownership Problem
Even if institutional investors’ common ownership of small stakes in competing firms did cause some softening of market competition—a claim that is both suspect as a theoretical matter and empirically shaky—the policy solutions common ownership critics have proposed would do more harm than good. Einer Elhauge has called for public and private lawsuits against institutional ... Problems with Proposed Solutions to the Common Ownership Problem
Weekend Reads
Innovation dies in darkness. Well, actually, it thrives in the light, according to this new research: We find that after a patent library opens, local patenting increases by 17% relative to control regions that have Federal Depository Libraries. … [T]]he library boost ceases to be present after the introduction of the Internet. We find that ... Weekend Reads
Chevron and the Politicization of Law (or, Chevron Step Three)
A recent exchange between Chris Walker and Philip Hamburger about Walker’s ongoing empirical work on the Chevron doctrine (the idea that judges must defer to reasonable agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes) gives me a long-sought opportunity to discuss what I view as the greatest practical problem with the Chevron doctrine: it increases both politicization and polarization of ... Chevron and the Politicization of Law (or, Chevron Step Three)
Problems with the Evidence of Anticompetitive Harm from Common Ownership
Mike Sykuta and I have been blogging about our new paper responding to scholars who contend that institutional investors’ common ownership of small stakes in competing firms significantly reduces market competition and should be restricted. (FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips cited the paper yesterday in his excellent prepared remarks on common ownership.) Mike first described the ... Problems with the Evidence of Anticompetitive Harm from Common Ownership
Weekend reads
Good government dies in the darkness. This article is getting a lot of attention on Wonk Twitter and what’s left of the blogosphere. From the abstract: We examine the effect of local newspaper closures on public finance for local governments. Following a newspaper closure, we find municipal borrowing costs increase by 5 to 11 basis ... Weekend reads
Problems With the Theory of Anticompetitive Harm from Common Ownership
Mike Sykuta and I have been blogging about our recent paper on so-called “common ownership” by institutional investors like Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity, and State Street. Following my initial post, Mike described the purported problem with institutional investors’ common ownership of small stakes in competing firms. As Mike explained, the theory of anticompetitive harm holds that small-stakes ... Problems With the Theory of Anticompetitive Harm from Common Ownership
A preliminary assessment of the relative antitrust risk of a Comcast vs Disney purchase of 21st Century Fox assets
As has been rumored in the press for a few weeks, today Comcast announced it is considering making a renewed bid for a large chunk of Twenty-First Century Fox’s (Fox) assets. Fox is in the process of a significant reorganization, entailing primarily the sale of its international and non-television assets. Fox itself will continue, but ... A preliminary assessment of the relative antitrust risk of a Comcast vs Disney purchase of 21st Century Fox assets
The net neutrality CRA may be the most tedious piece of political theater ever
At this point, only the most masochistic and cynical among DC’s policy elite actually desire for the net neutrality conflict to continue. And yet, despite claims that net neutrality principles are critical to protecting consumers, passage of the current Congressional Review Act (“CRA”) disapproval resolution in Congress would undermine consumer protection and promise only to ... The net neutrality CRA may be the most tedious piece of political theater ever
The Case for Doing Nothing: The ‘Problem’ of Common Ownership
As Thom previously posted, he and I have a new paper explaining The Case for Doing Nothing About Common Ownership of Small Stakes in Competing Firms. Our paper is a response to cries from the likes of Einer Elhauge and of Eric Posner, Fiona Scott Morton, and Glen Weyl, who have called for various types ... The Case for Doing Nothing: The ‘Problem’ of Common Ownership
