Showing archive for: “FTC”
An Antitrust Analysis of the Federal Trade Commission’s Complaint Against Intel
As readers of TOTM know, I’ve been critical of both the Federal Trade Commission’s Complaint against Intel from a consumer welfare perspective as well as the wobbly intellectual underpinnings of the Commission’s attempt to expand its FTC Act Section 5 authority to evade (see also here) the more stringent monopolization standards under Section 2 of ... An Antitrust Analysis of the Federal Trade Commission’s Complaint Against Intel
Antitrust Law and Economics
Antitrust Law and Economics, a volume edited by Keith Hylton, is now available from Edward Elgar Publishing. Here is the description: This comprehensive book provides an extensive overview of the major topics of antitrust law from an economic perspective. Its in-depth treatment and analysis of both the law and economics of antitrust is presented via ... Antitrust Law and Economics
Two Submissions to the Horizontal Merger Guidelines Review Project
This week, I submitted two comments to the Horizontal Merger Guidelines Revision Project. The first, submitted with a group of economists focusing on the use of price/cost margins in merger analysis. The submission lays out the basic relationship between margins and elasticities that flows from the profit-maximization assumption, and then discusses several of the factors ... Two Submissions to the Horizontal Merger Guidelines Review Project
The Economics and Regulation of Payment Card Interchange Fees: Paper and Conference
Two related items from ICLE: As regular readers know, interchange fees are a frequent topic of conversation around the blog. Taking the conversation from the ether to the real world, ICLE has funded a white paper and is putting on a conference next week on the topic. The conference, in fact, grows out of the ... The Economics and Regulation of Payment Card Interchange Fees: Paper and Conference
Google's Very Public Efficiencies Defense
Here is Google’s attempt to measure its the economic impact of Google search and adwords, adsense and its Google grants programs. Some media coverage (including a critique of the calculations) here. The total? $54 billion. The report includes state-by-state breakdowns. Not exactly a made-for-litigation antitrust expert report, but I’m sure a few copies have been ... Google's Very Public Efficiencies Defense
Who is Pressuring Antitrust? A Response to Wright
[Jonathan Baker (American University, currently on leave at the Federal Communications Commission where he is Chief Economist) has written the following response to Josh’s earlier post commenting on Baker’s forthcoming article: Preserving a Political Bargain: The Political Economy of the Non-Interventionist Challenge to Monopolization Enforcement. Eds.] Thanks to Josh for engaging with my article in ... Who is Pressuring Antitrust? A Response to Wright
Comments on Jonathan Baker's Preserving a Political Bargain
I’ve recently finished reading Jonathan Baker’s Preserving a Political Bargain: The Political Economy of the Non-Interventionist Challenge to Monopolization Enforcement, forthcoming in the Antitrust Law Journal. Baker’s central thesis in Preserving a Political Bargain builds on earlier work concerning competition policy as an implicit political bargain that was reached during the 1940s between the more ... Comments on Jonathan Baker's Preserving a Political Bargain
Are State Consumer Protection Acts Really Little FTC Acts?
I’ve posted to SSRN my latest on state consumer protection litigation, Are State Consumer Protection Acts Really Little FTC Acts?, co-authored with Henry Butler (Searle Center, Northwestern University School of Law). It is forthcoming in the Florida Law Review. The project aims to empirically examine the similarities and differences between state and federal consumer protection ... Are State Consumer Protection Acts Really Little FTC Acts?
Some Links
There is quite a bit of IO on Youtube (HT: comments section from MR) Congrats to GMU’s Murat Mungan for taking home the Whitney Prize The lineup for the Alabama Ag/ Antitrust workshop has been announced The CD-MAP antitrust settlement funds are paying for concerts Investigation against Apple looms after complaint from Adobe — the ... Some Links
Judge Sullivan and the UPP: Much Ado About Nothing or Articulating the Real Problem with the New HMGs?
Much has been made of Judge Sullivan’s recent decision in City of New York v. Group Health Incorporated and its implications for the UPP test and market definition in merger cases under Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Given the 2010 Proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines’ (2010 HMGs) shift toward diversion ratios and margins and away ... Judge Sullivan and the UPP: Much Ado About Nothing or Articulating the Real Problem with the New HMGs?
Some Links
Facebook hires recent Kirkpatrick Award winner Tim Muris to manage their antitrust and consumer protection business at the Federal Trade Commission (or did they?) My colleague Neomi Rao in the WSJ on the Kagan nomination The UK British Airways price-fixing trial implodes after the OFT didn’t turn over evidence (Businessweek) The FTC has, to its ... Some Links
The Proposed Merger Guidelines: How Much of a Shift?
The proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines (HMGs) have been treated by some as a major shift in enforcement approach away from a tight structure that begins with market definition to a more flexible and open-ended competitive effects approach. Some of the specific concerns that have been raised are that the proposed HMGs dramatically change enforcement policy ... The Proposed Merger Guidelines: How Much of a Shift?
