Showing archive for: “Efficiencies”
Fed should stay out of Google/Twitter social search spat
As has become customary with just about every new product announcement by Google these days, the company’s introduction on Tuesday of its new “Search, plus Your World” (SPYW) program, which aims to incorporate a user’s Google+ content into her organic search results, has met with cries of antitrust foul play. All the usual blustering and ... Fed should stay out of Google/Twitter social search spat
Social Search, Efficiencies of Integration, and Antitrust
The web is all abuzz about possible antitrust implications concerning Google’s new personalized search (see, e.g., here and here), integrating search with Google Plus. Here is Google’s description of “Search, plus Your World”: We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with ... Social Search, Efficiencies of Integration, and Antitrust
AAI’s Antitrust Jury Instruction Project: A good idea in theory, but…
The American Antitrust Institute has announced plans to draft a comprehensive set of jury instructions for antitrust trials. According to AAI president Bert Foer: In Sherman Act Section 1 and Section 2 civil cases, judges tend to gravitate towards the ABA Model Instructions as the gold standard for impartial instructions. … The AAI believes the ABA model ... AAI’s Antitrust Jury Instruction Project: A good idea in theory, but…
2011 Illinois Corporate Colloquium: Shadab on credit risk transfer
The 2011 Illinois Corporate Colloquium got off to a good start with Houman Shadab presenting his paper, The Good, the Bad, and the Savvy: Credit Risk Transfer Governance. Here’s the abstract: Goldman Sachs and AIG on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis were bound together through a web of credit risk transfer (CRT) contracts ... 2011 Illinois Corporate Colloquium: Shadab on credit risk transfer
Why Did Sprint Pile On the DOJ’s AT&T / T-Mobile Suit?
So, the AT&T / T-Mobile transaction gets more and more interesting. Sprint has filed a complaint challenging the transaction. I’ve been commenting on the weakness of the DOJ complaint and in particular, its heavy reliance on market structure to make inferences about competitive effects. The heavy dose of structural presumption in the DOJ complaint — ... Why Did Sprint Pile On the DOJ’s AT&T / T-Mobile Suit?
DOJ Files Suit to Block AT&T / T-Mobile Merger
More on this later. For now, here is the complaint and the press release: WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice today filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc. The department said that the proposed $39 billion transaction would substantially lessen competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services ... DOJ Files Suit to Block AT&T / T-Mobile Merger
Review of Industrial Organization Special Merger Guidelines Issue
The August 2011 issue of Review of Industrial Organization is a special issue on the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines edited by Roger Blair. The issue is available here, and includes articles from: Herbert Hovenkamp Robert Willig Wayne-Roy Gale, Robert C. Marshall, Leslie M. Marx and Jean-Francois Richard Roger D. Blair and Jessica S. Haynes John ... Review of Industrial Organization Special Merger Guidelines Issue
FairSearch’s Non-Sequitur Response
Our search neutrality paper has received some recent attention. While the initial response from Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal was favorable, critics are now voicing their responses. Although we appreciate FairSearch’s attempt to engage with our paper’s central claims, its response is really little more than an extended non-sequitur and fails to contribute ... FairSearch’s Non-Sequitur Response
Searching for Antitrust Remedies, Part I
This is part one of a two part series of posts in which I’ll address the problems associated with discerning an appropriate antitrust remedy to alleged search engine bias. The first problem – and part – is, of course, how we should conceptualize Google’s allegedly anticompetitive conduct; in the next part, I will address how ... Searching for Antitrust Remedies, Part I
Sacrificing Consumer Welfare in the Search Bias Debate, Part II
I did not intend for this to become a series (Part I), but I underestimated the supply of analysis simultaneously invoking “search bias” as an antitrust concept while waving it about untethered from antitrust’s institutional commitment to protecting consumer welfare. Harvard Business School Professor Ben Edelman offers the latest iteration in this genre. We’ve criticized ... Sacrificing Consumer Welfare in the Search Bias Debate, Part II
WAPO Concludes that Vertical Efficiencies Trump Horizontal Market Power
A Washington Post editorial last week reached the surprising conclusion that a series of vertical and horizontal acquisitions that led to a firm owning about 40% of the gas stations in the District of Columbia was procompetitive. The editorial apparently concluded that the vertical integration efficiencies were more important than the adverse horizontal effects. The ... WAPO Concludes that Vertical Efficiencies Trump Horizontal Market Power
Corporate governance, incentive compensation and the uncorporation
Acharya, Gabarro and Volpin’s Competition for Managers, Corporate Governance and Incentive Compensation has interesting insights and data on both corporate governance and executive compensation debates. In the final analysis, I think it’s most interesting for what it says about the uncorporation. Here’s the abstract: We propose a model in which firms use corporate governance as ... Corporate governance, incentive compensation and the uncorporation
