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Harvard v. Chicago on Vertical Restraints

TOTM In a new article in the June 2008 issue of Antitrust Source, Howard Marvel discusses what the rule of reason could and should look like . . .

In a new article in the June 2008 issue of Antitrust Source, Howard Marvel discusses what the rule of reason could and should look like in the Post-Leegin world as well as the different proposals to a rule of reason approach articulated by the states and the FTC in the recent Nine West consent order modification. For interested readers, Marvel is much more generous to the FTC decision than co-blogger Thom who not to long ago posted a harsh (and in my view, fairly devastating on both legal and economic grounds) critique of the Commission’s approach.

Read the full piece here.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Behavioral Economics and Antitrust at AAI

TOTM Related to Thom’s post on behavioral economics and the problem of conflicting or offsetting biases, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) held a conference on June . . .

Related to Thom’s post on behavioral economics and the problem of conflicting or offsetting biases, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) held a conference on June 18th 2008 (audio available at the link above). The conference was, as I understand it, designed as a precursor to the AAI’s release of a “Transition Report” to the next administration, offering its own view of antitrust enforcement agenda. The conference kicked off with a keynote from Donald Langevoort (Georgetown), filling in for Cass Sunstein, on behavioral economics and its potential role in antitrust followed by a panel discussion. After listening and reading Thom’s post, and informed by some of the work that I’ve done comparing the empirical predictions of “traditional” microeconomic theory with behavioral economics in consumer contracting markets and finding that the former outperforms the latter, I had a few reactions to what I heard from the keynote and panelists.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Lipton on Shareholder Primacy

TOTM It should be no surprise that the inventor of the poison pill is pro-director, but Marty Lipton’s remarks at a June 25 conference at the . . .

It should be no surprise that the inventor of the poison pill is pro-director, but Marty Lipton’s remarks at a June 25 conference at the University of Minnesota Law School left no doubt that he truly believes in his heart of hearts that we’re better off with strong, unencumbered boards. According to the WSJ’s deals blog (quoted in today’s print edition), Lipton wondered aloud whether the move to shareholder-centric governance will “simply overwhelm American business corporations.”

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Financial Regulation & Corporate Governance

Cert Granted in Linkline

TOTM The Supreme Court has granted cert in Pacific Bell Telephone Co., dba AT&T California v. linkLine Communications in order to address the question of whether . . .

The Supreme Court has granted cert in Pacific Bell Telephone Co., dba AT&T California v. linkLine Communications in order to address the question of whether a Section 2 “price squeeze” claim is viable under the Sherman Act if the defendant has no duty to deal.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Chairman Kovacic Announces the “FTC at 100” Self-Assessement Exercise

TOTM Chairman Kovacic has posted a paper announcing a major self-assessment initiative at the FTC: The FTC at 100: Into our Second Century.  Here is the . . .

Chairman Kovacic has posted a paper announcing a major self-assessment initiative at the FTC: The FTC at 100: Into our Second Century.  Here is the opening paragraph…

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

“It’s nonsensical to object”

TOTM So says Jagdish Bhagwati about the recent objections by 100 or so University of Chicago faculty members to the establishment of the Milton Friedman Institute.  . . .

So says Jagdish Bhagwati about the recent objections by 100 or so University of Chicago faculty members to the establishment of the Milton Friedman Institute.  (HT: Chicago Tribune).  Here’s the whole quote as reported from the Chicago Tribune…

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Economics & Ideology Again

TOTM Crooked Timber has a very interesting post up on the minimum wage debate (HT: Brian Leiter).  I want to comment on the sub-theme of the . . .

Crooked Timber has a very interesting post up on the minimum wage debate (HT: Brian Leiter).  I want to comment on the sub-theme of the post (and the theme picked up in the title of Leiter’s post), which was that economics ideologically driven by pro-market bias which results in the publication of pro-market findings over those that would favor regulation or demonstrate some sort of market failure.

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Kobayashi & Wright on Antitrust Limits, Federalism and Patent Holdup

TOTM I’ve posted to SSRN my new article (co-authored by my colleague Bruce Kobayashi), Federalism, Substantive Preemption, and Limits on Antitrust: An Application to Patent Holdup. . . .

I’ve posted to SSRN my new article (co-authored by my colleague Bruce Kobayashi), Federalism, Substantive Preemption, and Limits on Antitrust: An Application to Patent Holdup. We presented an earlier version of our analysis at the George Mason/ Microsoft Conference on the Law and Economics of Innovation and benefited significantly from comments from the discussants and participants. We take an approach grounded in the economics of federalism and recent Supreme Court antitrust jurisprudence in arguing for substantive limits on antitrust enforcement of patent holdup in favor of reliance on patent law as well as state common law. Along the way we discuss recent cases and enforcement actions involving patent holdup, including the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Rambus, Broadcom, and N-Data. If you’re a reader interested in patent holdup and related issues, please give the paper a read. Comments welcome (here or email me).

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Antitrust Analysis of Tying Arrangements and Exclusive Dealing

Scholarship Abstract This chapter surveys the legal and economic literatures on the antitrust analysis of tying arrangements and exclusive dealing contracts. We review the analytical framework . . .

Abstract

This chapter surveys the legal and economic literatures on the antitrust analysis of tying arrangements and exclusive dealing contracts. We review the analytical framework applied under U.S. antitrust law to tying, bundling and exclusive dealing arrangements as well as the existing theoretical and empirical literatures.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection