Showing archive for: “Economics”
Correcting the Federalist Society Review’s Mischaracterization of How to Regulate
Ours is not an age of nuance. It’s an age of tribalism, of teams—“Yer either fer us or agin’ us!” Perhaps I should have been less surprised, then, when I read the unfavorable review of my book How to Regulate in, of all places, the Federalist Society Review. I had expected some positive feedback from ... Correcting the Federalist Society Review’s Mischaracterization of How to Regulate
Weekend reads: Big is bad edition
Big is bad, part 1: Kafka, Coase, and Brandeis walk into a bar … There’s a quip in a well-known textbook that Nobel laureate Ronald Coase said he’d grown weary of antitrust because when prices went up, the judges said it was monopoly; when the prices went down, they said it was predatory pricing; and ... Weekend reads: Big is bad edition
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
What’s hip (in antitrust) today should stay passé: Henry G. Manne on “hipster antitrust”
Today would have been Henry Manne’s 90th birthday. When he passed away in 2015 he left behind an immense and impressive legacy. In 1991, at the inaugural meeting of the American Law & Economics Association (ALEA), Manne was named a Life Member of ALEA and, along with Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase, and federal appeals court ... What’s hip (in antitrust) today should stay passé: Henry G. Manne on “hipster antitrust”
The Case for Doing Nothing About Common Ownership of Small Stakes in Competing Firms
One of the hottest antitrust topics of late has been institutional investors’ “common ownership” of minority stakes in competing firms. Writing in the Harvard Law Review, Einer Elhauge proclaimed that “[a]n economic blockbuster has recently been exposed”—namely, “[a] small group of institutions has acquired large shareholdings in horizontal competitors throughout our economy, causing them to ... The Case for Doing Nothing About Common Ownership of Small Stakes in Competing Firms
Amazon and the Unwisdom of the Populist Crowd
There are some who view a host of claimed negative social ills allegedly related to the large size of firms like Amazon as an occasion to call for the company’s break up. And, unfortunately, these critics find an unlikely ally in President Trump, whose tweet storms claim that tech platforms are too big and extract unfair rents ... Amazon and the Unwisdom of the Populist Crowd
Do biased stats provide bogus economics? A primer on publication bias and power
If you do research involving statistical analysis, you’ve heard of John Ioannidis. If you haven’t heard of him, you will. He’s gone after the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. He may be coming for your field next. Ioannidis is after bias in research. He is perhaps best known for a 2005 paper “Why Most ... Do biased stats provide bogus economics? A primer on publication bias and power
The Collateral Order Doctrine and State Action Immunity: Salt River Power District, Antitrust Federalism, and the Burden of State-Supported Monopoly
On December 1, 2017, in granting certiorari in Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District v. SolarCity Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider “whether orders denying antitrust state-action immunity to public entities are immediately appealable under the collateral-order doctrine.” At first blush, this case might appear to involve little more than a ... The Collateral Order Doctrine and State Action Immunity: Salt River Power District, Antitrust Federalism, and the Burden of State-Supported Monopoly
The destiny of telecom regulation is antitrust
This week the FCC will vote on Chairman Ajit Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order. Once implemented, the Order will rescind the 2015 Open Internet Order and return antitrust and consumer protection enforcement to primacy in Internet access regulation in the U.S. In anticipation of that, earlier this week the FCC and FTC entered into a ... The destiny of telecom regulation is antitrust
An ambitious AG, a disgruntled competitor, and the contrived antitrust case against Google in Missouri
The populists are on the march, and as the 2018 campaign season gets rolling we’re witnessing more examples of political opportunism bolstered by economic illiteracy aimed at increasingly unpopular big tech firms. The latest example comes in the form of a new investigation of Google opened by Missouri’s Attorney General, Josh Hawley. Mr. Hawley — ... An ambitious AG, a disgruntled competitor, and the contrived antitrust case against Google in Missouri
Pai’s Right on Net Neutrality and Title II
As I explain in my new book, How to Regulate, sound regulation requires thinking like a doctor. When addressing some “disease” that reduces social welfare, policymakers should catalog the available “remedies” for the problem, consider the implementation difficulties and “side effects” of each, and select the remedy that offers the greatest net benefit. If we ... Pai’s Right on Net Neutrality and Title II
Some Good News (Maybe?) from DOJ’s Antitrust Division
I remain deeply skeptical of any antitrust challenge to the AT&T/Time Warner merger. Vertical mergers like this one between a content producer and a distributor are usually efficiency-enhancing. The theories of anticompetitive harm here rely on a number of implausible assumptions — e.g., that the combined company would raise content prices (currently set at profit-maximizing ... Some Good News (Maybe?) from DOJ’s Antitrust Division
