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TOTM Professor Joe Brodley, after a long and distinguished career as an antitrust scholar, retired at the end of the Spring 2009 semester. Boston University Law . . .
Professor Joe Brodley, after a long and distinguished career as an antitrust scholar, retired at the end of the Spring 2009 semester. Boston University Law School will host a symposium honoring Joe’s contributions to Antitrust on September 18, 2009. The Boston University Law Review will publish the contributions.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM University of Chicago economist (and behavioralist doyen) Richard Thaler thinks “the question of whether a ‘public option’ should be part of the health care solution” . . .
University of Chicago economist (and behavioralist doyen) Richard Thaler thinks “the question of whether a ‘public option’ should be part of the health care solution” is just “one big distraction.” In Sunday’s New York Times, Thaler argues that the debate over the public option is a “red herring” if, as President Obama insists, the public plan will have to break even and won’t be granted “the power to impose special deals with suppliers like hospitals and drug companies.” If those two conditions are satisfied, Thaler contends, the public plan is unlikely to have much success and certainly won’t drive out private insurers.
Scholarship The article, written jointly by a law professor and political science professor, endeavors to explain why the United States is particularly resistant to various efforts at international harmonization of antitrust law.
Although many states have advocated for the internationalization of antitrust laws, the United States has resisted a multilateral solution. We place the conflict over antitrust laws within the larger framework of international relations and draw out some novel implications of the debate by connecting the harmonization of international economic laws with the promotion of international peace and security. The harmonization of global antitrust laws is imbued with a political dimension that confers political benefits on the United States.
By crafting institutions in which other parties must alter their domestic political structures, the United States receives a credible commitment from other states of their willingness to bear the domestic costs of adherence to the specific agreement under negotiation, helping the United States identify potential allies. Separating budding friends from probable foes is a critical task of international security, and the United States derives political benefits from international agreements in a way that transcends the substance of the agreements themselves.
Read the full paper here.
TOTM In April 2008, the UK Competition Commission issued its Final Report culminating from its grocery sector inquiry. Along with supermarket concentration, the concern that emerges . . .
In April 2008, the UK Competition Commission issued its Final Report culminating from its grocery sector inquiry. Along with supermarket concentration, the concern that emerges out of that Report is that supermarkets will use their power to negotiate sharp deals with suppliers.
TOTM I’ve criticized the European Commission’s antitrust attack against Intel here and the resulting $1.44 billion fine. Now the EU is drawing fire for allegedly burying . . .
I’ve criticized the European Commission’s antitrust attack against Intel here and the resulting $1.44 billion fine. Now the EU is drawing fire for allegedly burying testimony, or at least failing to record it in a satisfactory manner, from Dell that it chose Intel’s chips not because of the coercive force of any of Intel’s rebates but because it preferred the performance of those chips over AMD’s product offerings. Part of the problem here is that the EU’s 542 page decision remains confidential and so it is impossible to tell what kind of impact this testimony would have on the issue of liability — and indeed the WSJ story sensibly suggests that there is little reason to believe that disclosure of this evidence would have changed the outcome. The WSJ story concludes by taking a swing at EU procedure…
TOTM I recently commented on Gordon Crovitz’s WSJ column on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal arguing that antitrust was simply too cumbersome to deal competition issues in dynamic . . .
I recently commented on Gordon Crovitz’s WSJ column on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal arguing that antitrust was simply too cumbersome to deal competition issues in dynamic markets like search. A short version of my take was that these concerns are often overstated in the areas of cartels and even sometimes in merger enforcement — but have their greatest bite in single firm conduct cases involving innovative markets where economic technology for detecting anticompetitive conduct is at its weakest and the stakes are highest. Randy Picker (Chicago) chimes in on the Crovitz piece with an interesting take and a call for even-handed application of claims that antitrust is obsolete…
TOTM Having just had four wisdom teeth pulled this morning at age 32, about ten years after the dentist first recommended it, the dental services market . . .
Having just had four wisdom teeth pulled this morning at age 32, about ten years after the dentist first recommended it, the dental services market is on my (anesthesia fogged) mind this afternoon. But it reminded me of a post I wanted to write highlighting the efforts of the FTC Office of Policy and Planning for their latest comments (a few months old, but worth noting) to the legislature of Louisiana on a pending bill (HB 687) that would restrict competition and entry in the dental market in that state.
TOTM Gordon Crovitz (WSJ) plays the new economy card on antitrust. Its a familiar wrap for those in the antitrust community that hit its peak in . . .
Gordon Crovitz (WSJ) plays the new economy card on antitrust. Its a familiar wrap for those in the antitrust community that hit its peak in the original Microsoft days with virtually every competition policy scholar and commentator chiming in with an opinion about whether the internet and network effects and so forth rendered antitrust obsolete. Analyzing the Microsoft case is a bit of an antitrust Rorschach test nowadays with critics of antitrust in the modern economy viewing the Microsoft prosecution in the U.S. as disastrous and likely harmful to consumers, more moderate (but still skeptical) folks believing that the prosecution was a Quixotic and not likely to affect competition or consumers because antitrust was simply too slow to respond in dynamic markets, and proponents pointing to it as proof of antitrust’s modern relevance. The best analysis I’ve read of the Microsoft saga, and one I recommend to anybody interested, is Page and Lopatka’s The Microsoft Case (Chicago Press).
TOTM As American antitrust regulators hurtle headlong toward a Europeanized (i.e., competitor-focused) antitrust, I do hope they will at least avoid the tack the EU has . . .
As American antitrust regulators hurtle headlong toward a Europeanized (i.e., competitor-focused) antitrust, I do hope they will at least avoid the tack the EU has taken in evaluating Lufthansa’s proposed takeover of Austrian Airlines. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that EU Antitrust Chief Neelie Kroes has directed her subordinates to draft a “conditional clearance” that approves the merger subject to Lufthansa’s surrender of a number of routes. Lufthansa offered to give up those routes “in response to the concerns raised by competitors,” the Journal reports. It also reports that EU regulators enlisted the assistance of Lufthansa’s competitors in fashioning the conditions to merger approval…
