January Threads 2026

ICLE February 4, 2026

Threads from ICLE scholars on trending issues for the month of January 2026.

? New paper! ? (haven't used the sirens in a while, but I'm excited about this one)

How do cost shocks pass through to prices when there's price dispersion?

Standard pass-through analysis assumes a single equilibrium price. But empirical studies find huge price variation,… pic.twitter.com/crxl4jzl5P

— Brian Albrecht (@BrianCAlbrecht) January 23, 2026

And another one! @laweconcenter comments filed today on Advancing IP Interconnection. The @FCC has been doing great work to allow telcos to retire old copper networks, but there are still interconnection requirements for incumbents that make fuill retirement impossible. https://t.co/UlgEXdMnyO pic.twitter.com/ywEzV5yycC

— Jeffrey Westling (@jeffreywestling) January 20, 2026

Trump called Kamala’s price control proposal “SOVIET-style.”

I assumed that was a criticism!

Now he wants to cap credit card interest rates. And that’s not even the only “markets by presidential command” he’s been pushing

My latest in @PostOpinions https://t.co/N6VXJxMHO9 pic.twitter.com/dBf39vHpU0

— Brian Albrecht (@BrianCAlbrecht) January 19, 2026

Markups and Business Dynamism across Industries with @UpdatedPriors

Now available onlinehttps://t.co/mBYJaQLex8 pic.twitter.com/bc5ImFy3lB

— Brian Albrecht (@BrianCAlbrecht) January 18, 2026

Oren Cass is going to testify to Congress that the US must "prohibit all sales of advanced AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China."

I hope we all see the irony.

Cass has built his name as the conservative arguing that trade dependency is bad because it… pic.twitter.com/RaRizNFOEO

— Brian Albrecht (@BrianCAlbrecht) January 12, 2026

New blog post today @TOTMblog explaining why Carding the Internet Still Isn’t Constitutional.

tl;dr: Even as the debate on age verification shifts from social media to app stores, these laws fail First Amendment scrutiny pic.twitter.com/baaqa3lSRW

— Ben Sperry (@RBenSperry) January 12, 2026

Why would anyone continue to use humans when AI is vastly more productive?

We don’t need to speculate about what happens when massive efficiency differences exist between producers. We have that today. The inefficient producers still remain.

The most efficient white bread… pic.twitter.com/uDH5c6firg

— Brian Albrecht (@BrianCAlbrecht) January 5, 2026