Michael Abramowicz of George Washington Law School discusses livelihood insurance in the first webinar of the New Ideas in Insurance speakers series of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut School of Law. Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller has argued for livelihood insurance, a financial derivative that would provide compensation when many individuals in a particular occupation suffer losses. In this talk, Abramowicz explores why livelihood insurance did not emerge in time to protect workers in the last pandemic and what the government can do before the next crisis to protect workers in vulnerable professions. The full video is embedded below.

I was having a conversation recently with a fellow denizen of rural America, discussing how to create opportunities for academics studying the digital divide to get on-the-ground experience with the realities of rural telecommunications. He recounted a story from a telecom policy event in Washington, D.C., from not long ago. The story featured a couple of well-known participants in federal telecom policy as they were talking about how to close the rural digital divide. The punchline of the story was loud speculation from someone in attendance that neither of these bloviating telecom experts had likely ever set foot in a rural town.

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Ajit Pai came into the Federal Communications Commission chairmanship with a single priority: to improve the coverage, cost, and competitiveness of U.S. broadband for the benefit of consumers. The 5G Fast Plan, the formation of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, the large spectrum auctions, and other broadband infrastructure initiatives over the past four years have resulted in accelerated buildouts and higher-quality services. Millions more Americans have gotten connected because of agency action and industry investment.

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Chairman Ajit Pai prioritized making new spectrum available for 5G. To his credit, he succeeded. Over the course of four years, Chairman Pai made available more high-band and mid-band spectrum, for licensed use and unlicensed use, than any other Federal Communications Commission chairman. He did so in the face of unprecedented opposition from other federal agencies, navigating the chaotic currents of the Trump administration with political acumen and courage. The Pai FCC will go down in history as the 5G FCC, and as the chairman who protected the primacy of FCC control over commercial spectrum policy.

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Ajit Pai will step down from his position as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effective Jan. 20. Beginning Jan. 15, Truth on the Market will host a symposium exploring Pai’s tenure, with contributions from a range of scholars and practitioners.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic rolls on, leaving death and economic destruction in its wake, governments around the world have responded with massive ‘stimulus’ programs funded by issuing debt. Many governments, including the US, UK, and most EU governments now have debt: GDP ratios that exceed 100 per cent. Unless economic growth rebounds rapidly, the repayment of this debt is likely to become a major burden.

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It has been a brutal few days for Parler, the now-infamous Twitter alternative favored by President Donald Trump’s most die-hard supporters. Both Google and Apple removed the app from their online stores, and the site went offline altogether after Amazon Web Services (AWS) suspended its webhosting account with little notice.

Parler responded to this deplatforming by filing an antitrust suit against Amazon, which is certain to fail and may not even survive a motion to dismiss. The crux of Parler’s antitrust case is that Amazon conspired with Twitter to eliminate its service. But the company’s filing contains not a single allegation of reduced competition relevant to antitrust law, let alone evidence to back up such claims.

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Admirers of the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and other antitrust populists often trace the history of American anti-monopoly sentiments from the Founding Era through the Progressive Era’s passage of laws to fight the scourge of 19th century monopolists. For example, Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project, both in his book Goliath and in other writings, frames the story of America essentially as a battle between monopolists and anti-monopolists.

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ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz joined the Legal Talk Today podcast on an episode titled “Why So Many Robocalls? Why?!” The full episode can be played below.

If you’re getting persistent calls from seemingly familiar phone numbers at all hours, you’re not alone. Learn why efforts at regulation have so far been inadequate.