Showing archive for: “News & Social Media”
The Lasting Legacy of the Amazon-Whole Foods Merger Will Likely Be the Spread of Grocery Tech
The negativity that surrounded the deal at its announcement made Whole Foods seem like an innocent player, but it is important to recall that they were hemorrhaging and were looking to exit. Throughout the 2010s, the company lost its market leading edge as others began to offer the same kinds of services and products. Still, the company was able to sell near the top of its value to Amazon because it was able to court so many suitors. Given all of these features, Whole Foods could have been using the exit as a mechanism to appropriate another firm’s rent.
Senator Warner’s retrogressive proposals could lead to arbitrary and capricious interventions that would harm entrepreneurs and consumers
Last week, I objected to Senator Warner relying on the flawed AOL/Time Warner merger conditions as a template for tech regulatory policy, but there is a much deeper problem contained in his proposals. Although he does not explicitly say “big is bad” when discussing competition issues, the thrust of much of what he recommends would ... Senator Warner’s retrogressive proposals could lead to arbitrary and capricious interventions that would harm entrepreneurs and consumers
The EU’s Google Android antitrust decision falls prey to the nirvana fallacy
Today the European Commission launched its latest salvo against Google, issuing a decision in its three-year antitrust investigation into the company’s agreements for distribution of the Android mobile operating system. The massive fine levied by the Commission will dominate the headlines, but the underlying legal theory and proposed remedies are just as notable — and ... The EU’s Google Android antitrust decision falls prey to the nirvana fallacy
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
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
The illiberal vision of neo-Brandeisian antitrust
Following is the (slightly expanded and edited) text of my remarks from the panel, Antitrust and the Tech Industry: What Is at Stake?, hosted last Thursday by CCIA. Bruce Hoffman (keynote), Bill Kovacic, Nicolas Petit, and Christine Caffarra also spoke. If we’re lucky Bruce will post his remarks on the FTC website; they were very ... The illiberal vision of neo-Brandeisian antitrust
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
Soylent Analytica: The Graph is too Damn Open
The world discovered something this past weekend that the world had already known: that what you say on the Internet stays on the Internet, spread intractably and untraceably through the tendrils of social media. I refer, of course, to the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook SNAFU (or just Situation Normal): the disclosure that Cambridge Analytica, a company used ... Soylent Analytica: The Graph is too Damn Open
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
IMG-Learfield: An antitrust reality check on two-sided market mergers
Yesterday Learfield and IMG College inked their recently announced merger. Since the negotiations were made public several weeks ago, the deal has garnered some wild speculation and potentially negative attention. Now that the merger has been announced, it’s bound to attract even more attention and conjecture. On the field of competition, however, the market realities ... IMG-Learfield: An antitrust reality check on two-sided market mergers
The Washington Post editorial board understands online competition better than the European Commission does
Last week the editorial board of the Washington Post penned an excellent editorial responding to the European Commission’s announcement of its decision in its Google Shopping investigation. Here’s the key language from the editorial: Whether the demise of any of [the complaining comparison shopping sites] is specifically traceable to Google, however, is not so clear. ... The Washington Post editorial board understands online competition better than the European Commission does
How Uber uses innovative management tactics to incentivize its drivers: A critical commentary on Noam Scheiber’s “How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons”
In a recent long-form article in the New York Times, reporter Noam Scheiber set out to detail some of the ways Uber (and similar companies, but mainly Uber) are engaged in “an extraordinary experiment in behavioral science to subtly entice an independent work force to maximize its growth.” That characterization seems innocuous enough, but it is ... How Uber uses innovative management tactics to incentivize its drivers: A critical commentary on Noam Scheiber’s “How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its Drivers’ Buttons”
