Its a Bruin.  Marius Schwartz will replace Jonathan Baker as the new Chief Economist at the FCC.  From the press release:

Schwartz’s teaching and research specialties are in industrial organization, competition and regulation. Before joining Georgetown University, Schwartz served as Economics Director of Enforcement at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics. He also served the President’s Council of Economic Advisers as the Senior Economist for industrial organization matters. Schwartz holds a B.Sc. degree from the London School of Economics and
a Ph.D. from UCLA, also in economics.

Casebook co-author, and previous TOTM contributor (see, e.g. here) Jonathan Baker will be heading back to American University.  However, the press release also notes that both Baker and Gregory Rosston will work on the AT&T – T-Mobile deal:

Outgoing Chief Economist Jonathan Baker and Gregory Rosston will both serve as Senior Economists for Transactions to work on the Commission’s reviews of the AT&T-T-Mobile and AT&T-Qualcomm transactions.

The Rosston appointment is interesting for those following the AT&T deal (more TOTM commentary here and here; my testimony is available here) because Rosston (with Roger Noll) has already publicly opined rather strongly on the merger.  In the short note, Rosston & Noll write that “the justifications for the acquisition do not seem particularly strong, and anticompetitive effects appear to be plausible,” and that “Superficially, the proposed acquisition appears to run seriously afoul of the merger policy of the antitrust enforcement agencies.”

Congratulations to Professor Schwartz, and to outgoing Chief Economist Baker.

Filed under: antitrust, economics, federal communications commission, mergers & acquisitions, wireless

As I mentioned previously, I testified at Thursday’s hearing on the AT&T / T-Mobile merger.  My written testimony is available here.  Links to the testimony from other witnesses are available at the link above.  I’ll post transcripts when they become available; same with the video link should one become available (I’m not aware of one — if you are, let me know).

Nothing much to report that is outside the written testimony.  Not surprisingly, most of the Committee’s attention was focused on the left hand side of the witness table.  Certainly, there was plenty of “firm counting” analysis and “what will this do for my constituents?” to go around.  But that one interesting development was that many of the hearing questions — certainly more than I anticipated based upon the Senate hearing — focused on vertical aspects of the merger (e.g. backhaul).

Filed under: antitrust, economics, federal communications commission, merger guidelines, mergers & acquisitions, wireless

Tomorrow morning.  I’ll post my written testimony here tomorrow.

Hearing on: “How Will the Proposed Merger Between AT&T and T-Mobile Affect Wireless Telecommunications Competition?”

Thursday 5/26/2011 – 10:30 a.m.

2141 Rayburn House Office Building

Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet

Witness List

Mr. Randall Stephenson
Chairman, Chief Executive Office and President
AT&T, Inc.

Mr. Rene Obermann
CEO

Deutsche Telekom AG

Mr. Steven K. Berry
President and CEO
Rural Cellular Association

Ms. Parul P. Desai
Communications Policy Counsel
Consumers Union

Professor Joshua Wright
George Mason University School of Law

Professor Andrew I. Gavil
Howard University School of Law

Filed under: antitrust, doj, economics, federal communications commission, merger guidelines, mergers & acquisitions, wireless

Intel Chairman and CEO Paul Otellini recently gave the keynote address at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum on the US regulation environment and its effect of innovation and economic growth (HT: CNET, WSJ).  The speech got some play in the media because of its overall depressing tone for the US, and its frank criticism of the current state of US regulatory affairs.

Read the full piece here.

Danny Sokol has posted the most downloaded antitrust law professors.  I come in 4th behind Damien Geradin, David Evans, and Herb Hovenkamp.   It is flattering to be in company like that by any measure.  Cool.  But, as Danny points out, what is even cooler is that George Mason is one of only a handful of schools with more than one faculty member making the list, with my colleague, co-author, and fellow Bruin economist Bruce Kobayashi coming in at #15.

Read the full piece here. 

Richard Thaler’s NYT Economic View column features Tom Hazlett (my colleague, and former chief economist as the FCC) proposal for auctioning off TV spectrum.   Thaler points out…

Read the full piece here. 

Geoff recently highlighted AAG Christine Varney’s closing remarks at the Horizontal Merger Guidelines workshop and was fairly critical.   Thom intervened to suggest that we at TOTM, while fairly critical of the agencies from time to time, also give credit where it is due — highlighting AAG Varney’s RPM article.  OK, that’s enough credit for now.

Read the full piece here. 

Here’s Henry Waxman on the federal government saving the newspapers from failing…

Read the full piece here.

How much thought have you given to your electricity consumption? If it hasn’t gone beyond “I flip the switch and the light comes on,” you’re not alone, which is one of many reasons electricity usage in the United States is inefficient. But that’s beginning to change.

Read the full piece here.