Research Programs
More
What are you looking for?
Showing Latest Publications
Popular Media Professor Bainbridge passes along the sad news that UCLA Law’s Arthur Rosett has passed. Professor Rosett my my contracts professor at UCLA in my first year . . .
Professor Bainbridge passes along the sad news that UCLA Law’s Arthur Rosett has passed. Professor Rosett my my contracts professor at UCLA in my first year of law school. The LA Times Obituary hits the highlights of Professor Rosett’s legal career:
Arthur was a distinguished legal scholar and esteemed member of the faculty at the UCLA School of Law for over 35 years. His areas of expertise included contract law, international business transactions, comparative law and Jewish law. He published numerous books and articles during his long academic career, and enjoyed lecturing at various institutions throughout the world. Upon graduating from Columbia Law School in 1958, Arthur served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court. During his early career, Arthur also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty 1967, Arthur served as Associate Director of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement (The National Crime Commission). Arthur will be remembered for his high intellect, his dedication to fairness and justice, his sharp wit and love of life. He is survived by his wife, Rhonda K. Lawrence; his three children David Rosett (Consuelo Ruiz Esparza) of Guadalajara, Mexico, Martha Rosett of Sherman Oaks, CA and Danny Rosett of Westlake Village, CA; his two grandsons Benjamin Rosett and Jacob Rosett; and many other family members and friends who loved him. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made in his name to the following charities: Los Angeles Chapter of the American Parkinson’s Disease Association, www.parkinsonla.org/ or to Hillel at UCLA, www.ucla.hillel.org Services entrusted to Hillside Mortuary (800) 576-1994.
More than any other class during law school, I remember my experience in contracts and think back to it often as I struggle to improve in teaching contract law to my students at George Mason. Professor Rosett was masterful in the classroom and artful in his teaching methods in ways that I was not capable of appreciating as a young law student — though I do remember an especially entertaining lecture on Frigaliment. I draw upon my experiences in his class as a 1L frequently and am grateful to have had the opportunity to be his student.
Scholarship The antitrust landscape changed dramatically in the last decade. Within the last two years alone, the Department of Justice has held hearings on the appropriate scope of Section 2 of the Sherman Act and has issued, then repudiated, a comprehensive Report.
The antitrust landscape changed dramatically in the last decade. Within the last two years alone, the Department of Justice has held hearings on the appropriate scope of Section 2 of the Sherman Act and has issued, then repudiated, a comprehensive Report. During the same time, the European Commission has become an aggressive leader in single?firm conduct enforcement by bringing abuse of dominance actions and assessing heavy fines against firms including Qualcomm, Intel, and Microsoft. In the United States, two of the most significant characteristics of the new antitrust approach have been the increased focus on innovative companies in high?tech industries and the diminished concern that erroneous antitrust interventions will hinder economic growth. This focus on high?tech industries is dangerous, and the concerns regarding erroneous interventions should not be dismissed too lightly.
This Article offers a comprehensive, cautionary tale in the context of a detailed factual, legal, and economic analysis of the next Microsoft: the theoretical, but perhaps imminent, enforcement against Google. Close scrutiny of the complex economics of Google’s disputed technology and business practices reveals a range of procompetitive explanations. Economic complexity and ambiguity, coupled with an insufficiently deferential approach to innovative technology and pricing practices in the most relevant case law, portend a potentially erroneous—and costly—result.
Our analysis, by contrast, embraces the cautious and evidence?based approach to uncertainty, complexity, and dynamic innovation contained within the well?established error?cost framework. As we demonstrate, though there is an abundance of error?cost concern in the Supreme Court precedent, there is a real risk that the current, aggressive approach to antitrust error, coupled with the uncertain economics of Google’s innovative conduct, will yield a costly intervention. The point is not that we know that Google’s conduct is procompetitive, but rather that the very uncertainty surrounding it counsels caution, not aggression.
TOTM The “consumer choice” approach to antitrust is increasingly discussed in a variety of settings, and endorsed by regulators and in scholarship, especially but not exclusively . . .
The “consumer choice” approach to antitrust is increasingly discussed in a variety of settings, and endorsed by regulators and in scholarship, especially but not exclusively in the Section 5 context. The fundamental idea is that the “conventional” efficiency approach embedded in the total and/or consumer welfare standards is too cramped and does not measure the “right” things. The consumer choice is a standard focusing on the options available to consumers and is proposed as an alternative to efficiency-based standards. Preliminary, I do not think the approach as I understand it is an improvement for modern antitrust methods, nor do I think that its adoption would be a good development for the coherence of antitrust jurisprudence or consumers.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM At the excellent Core Economics blog, Andreas Ortman discusses an Australian policy debate involving the Review of the Governance, Efficiency, Structure and Operation of Australia’s Superannuation System . . .
At the excellent Core Economics blog, Andreas Ortman discusses an Australian policy debate involving the Review of the Governance, Efficiency, Structure and Operation of Australia’s Superannuation System (also known as the Cooper Review), and more specifically, retirement savings and the superannuation system. The Cooper Review drafters contend that the behavioral economics literature strongly supports a mandated default option (MySuper).
Amicus Brief On November 23, 1998, the Attorneys General of 46 states signed an agreement settling allegations that the largest four tobacco manufacturers defrauded the states of Medicaid expenses.
On November 23, 1998, the Attorneys General of 46 states signed an agreement settling allegations that the largest four tobacco manufacturers defrauded the states of Medicaid expenses. The Master Settlement Agreement obligates the Majors and other manufacturers who opt in to the MSA to make annual payments totaling $206 billion. Under the MSA‘s terms, PMs‘ payments are calculated on the basis of their current national market shares. The annual payments are then allocated to the settling states. The MSA also prohibits PMs from various tobacco-related lobbying and advertising activity. MSA §§ III(b)-(i); III(m)-(p). The MSA raises the costs of cigarettes by approximately 35 cents per pack.
Structuring damage payments in this way would have created a significant competitive advantage for NPMs, which would have been able to undercut PMs‘ resulting inflated prices. The MSA contemplates this consequence by including several provisions that provide incentives for NPMs to join the settlement, thereby mitigating the competitive consequences of the PMs‘ annual payments to the states. These NPMs are often smaller companies which would stand to gain substantial market share by not joining the MSA. The MSA‘s incentives are accordingly generous.
First, new participants in the settlement which subject themselves to the tax increase within 90 days make zero MSA payments at all on sales at or below a benchmark level, defined as the higher of their 1998 sales or 125 percent of their 1997 sales. MSA § IX(i). To put the magnitude of this subsidy in perspective, a small manufacturer with sales of $100,000 per month would be entitled to a $1.5 million annual tax subsidy. See Jeremy Bulow, Director, Bureau of Econ., Fed. Trade Comm‘n, The State Tobacco Set- tlements and Antitrust (June 25, 2007).
TOTM Lynn Stout, writing in the Harvard Business Review’s blog, claims that hedge funds are uniquely “criminogenic” environments. (Not surprisingly, Frank Pasquale seems reflexively to approve)… . . .
Lynn Stout, writing in the Harvard Business Review’s blog, claims that hedge funds are uniquely “criminogenic” environments. (Not surprisingly, Frank Pasquale seems reflexively to approve)…
TOTM Steven Pearlstein at the Washington Post asks if it’s “Time to loosen Google’s grip.” The article is an analytical mess. Pearlstein is often a decent . . .
Steven Pearlstein at the Washington Post asks if it’s “Time to loosen Google’s grip.” The article is an analytical mess. Pearlstein is often a decent business reporter–I’m not sure what went wrong here, but this is a pretty shoddy piece of antitrust journalism.
TOTM There’s been much teeth-gnashing following yesterday’s ruling by a Virginia judge that the “individual mandate” portion of Obamacare is unconstitutional. Among many other places, see . . .
There’s been much teeth-gnashing following yesterday’s ruling by a Virginia judge that the “individual mandate” portion of Obamacare is unconstitutional. Among many other places, see the ongoing discussion at The Volokh Conspiracy. I have a quick, non-constitutional response.
TOTM Recent coverage of the A&P bankruptcy has alluded to its era of “dominance” in grocery retail, describing it as “the Wal-Mart of its day.” See . . .
Recent coverage of the A&P bankruptcy has alluded to its era of “dominance” in grocery retail, describing it as “the Wal-Mart of its day.” See this earlier post on the unconvincing antitrust case against Wal-Mart. However, what the A&P bankruptcy brings to mind for me is Justice Stewart’s famous dissent in Von’s Grocery. The famous line from Stewart’s powerful dissent objecting to the majority’s analysis, devoid of economic analysis and full of now well known contradictions, is his description of the merger law: “the only consistency is that the government always wins.”
