Showing archive for: “Economics”
Larry Ribstein on The Future of Legal Education
What will legal education be like in the significantly deregulated world I’ve predicted in prior posts? I gave some thought to this question in my recent paper, Practicing Theory. There I pointed out that law schools, and particularly law faculty, have benefited from the same regulation that has benefited lawyers. Although lawyers now complain that ... Larry Ribstein on The Future of Legal Education
Walter Olson on Careful What You Unleash
As a libertarian, I mostly concur in the critique of occupational licensure made famous by (among others) Milton Friedman. For the most part, licensure is a consumer-unfriendly affair that protects incumbent practitioners from competition, locks out promising new methods of service provision, and interferes with voluntary dealings between professional and client. It is dubious enough ... Walter Olson on Careful What You Unleash
Bruce Kobayashi on Creative Destruction and the Market for Legal Services
Innovation and entry by entrepreneurs is a powerful force for change. Joseph Schumpeter saw these forces as the primary engine for long-term growth, even as the process of creative destruction destroyed existing wealth, including monopoly rents associated with established regulatory regimes. The forces of creative destruction seemingly have their sights squarely on the legal profession, ... Bruce Kobayashi on Creative Destruction and the Market for Legal Services
Eric Talley on Deregulating Lawyers: Comments From a Knee-jerk Skeptic
I have spent the last few days reading the recent study by Clifford Winston, Robert W. Crandall, and Vikram Maheshri, entitled “First Thing We Do: Let’s Deregulate All the Lawyers” (Brookings Institution, 2011, $19.95). In it, the authors marshal a variety of empirical methods to argue that the current practice of state bar admission and ... Eric Talley on Deregulating Lawyers: Comments From a Knee-jerk Skeptic
SEC Organizational Reform Hearing
The semester is off to a bang. I arrived at Stanford Monday to start teaching in the Law School and begin a research fellowship at the Hoover Institution. Yesterday I hiked in the mountains overlooking the SF Bay. Today I am flying back to DC (and blogging in flight, how cool is that) to testify ... SEC Organizational Reform Hearing
My Reflections on The Senate CFPB Hearing
[Cross-posted at PYMNTS.COM] Richard Cordray’s nomination hearing provided an opportunity to learn something new about the substantive policies of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Unfortunately, that opportunity came and went without answering many of the key questions that remain concerning the impact of the CFPB’s enforcement and regulatory agenda on the availability of consumer ... My Reflections on The Senate CFPB Hearing
Do Exclusionary Theories of the AT&T / T-Mobile Transaction Better Explain the Market’s Reaction to the DOJ’s Decision to Challenge the Merger?
I don’t think so. Let’s start from the beginning. In my last post, I pointed out that simple economic theory generates some pretty clear predictions concerning the impact of a merger on rival stock prices. If a merger is results in a more efficient competitor, and more intense post-merger competition, rivals are made worse off ... Do Exclusionary Theories of the AT&T / T-Mobile Transaction Better Explain the Market’s Reaction to the DOJ’s Decision to Challenge the Merger?
Why Is Sprint’s Stock Surging Upon the Announcement of the DOJ’s Challenge to the Proposed AT&T / T-Mobile Merger?
Basic economic theory underlies the conventional antitrust wisdom that if a merger makes the merging party a more effective competitorby lowering its costs, rivals facing this more effective competitor post-merger are made worse off, but consumers benefit. On the other hand, if a merger is likely to result in collusion or a unilateral price increase, ... Why Is Sprint’s Stock Surging Upon the Announcement of the DOJ’s Challenge to the Proposed AT&T / T-Mobile Merger?
Legislative History of the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996
We’ve been discussing the proxy access case, see here, here, and here, where the DC Circuit overturned an SEC rule for failure to meet its requirement under the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 to consider the effect of the rule on efficiency, competition, and capital formation in addition to its historical mandate to consider ... Legislative History of the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996
Natural Disasters and Payday Lending
There has been plenty of Hurricane Irene blogging, and some posts linking natural disasters to various aspects of law and policy (see, e.g. my colleague Ilya Somin discussing property rights and falling trees). Often, post-natural disaster economic discussion at TOTM turns to the perverse consequences of price gouging laws. This time around, the damage from ... Natural Disasters and Payday Lending
Epstein, Kieff & Spulber Eviscerate the FTC’s Proposal on Regulating SSOs
In a thorough and convincing paper, “The FTC’s Proposal for Regulating IP through SSOs Would Replace Private Coordination with Government Hold-Up,” Richard Epstein, Scott Kieff and Dan Spulber assess and then decimate the FTC’s proposal on patent notice and remedies, “The Evolving IP Marketplace: Aligning Patent Notice and Remedies with Competition.” Note Epstein, Kieff and ... Epstein, Kieff & Spulber Eviscerate the FTC’s Proposal on Regulating SSOs
Popular Criticism of the Proxy Access Case
Bob Monks has a lot to say about Business Roundtable v. SEC. Some notable quotes: “The DC Circuit now has really made a reputation over four or five years of throwing out SEC regulations. Their reason for doing it is that the SEC has failed to generate cost-benefit information that conforms with their interpretation of ... Popular Criticism of the Proxy Access Case
