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Scholarship Frank Easterbrook's seminal analysis of error-cost minimization in The Limits of Antitrust has special relevance to antitrust intervention in markets where innovation is a critical dimension of competition.
Frank Easterbrook’s seminal analysis of error-cost minimization in The Limits of Antitrust has special relevance to antitrust intervention in markets where innovation is a critical dimension of competition. Both product and business innovations involve novel practices. Historically, the economics profession has tended initially to rely upon monopoly explanations for such practices. Courts have reacted with similar hostility.
But almost always there has followed a more nuanced economic understanding of the business practice that recognized its procompetitive virtues. Antitrust standards have adjusted occasionally to reflect that new economic learning. This sequence has produced a fundamental link between innovation and antitrust error that transcends the uncontroversial point that the probability of false positives and their social costs are both higher in the case of innovation and innovative business practices.
We discuss some principles for applying Easterbrook’s error-cost framework to innovation. We then discuss the historical relationship between antitrust error and innovation. We conclude by challenging the conventional wisdom that the error-cost approach implies that the rule of reason, rather than per se rules, should apply to most forms of business conduct. We instead identify simple filters to harness existing economic knowledge to design simple rules that minimize error costs. We make five such proposals.
TOTM I’m delighted to report that the Liberty Fund has produced a three-volume collection of my dad’s oeuvre. Fred McChesney edits, Jon Macey writes a new . . .
I’m delighted to report that the Liberty Fund has produced a three-volume collection of my dad’s oeuvre. Fred McChesney edits, Jon Macey writes a new biography and Henry Butler, Steve Bainbridge and Jon Macey write introductions. The collection can be ordered here.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM The FTC brought its long-awaited case against Intel today. New York Times report here. Of course we’ve covered the various antitrust claims against Intel at . . .
The FTC brought its long-awaited case against Intel today. New York Times report here. Of course we’ve covered the various antitrust claims against Intel at great length on this blog, and have found all of the theories wanting.
TOTM If you live outside the farm belt (or you’re not an antitrust junkie) you might have missed what is shaping up to be one of . . .
If you live outside the farm belt (or you’re not an antitrust junkie) you might have missed what is shaping up to be one of the biggest antitrust stories of the coming year: The set of antitrust accusations and actions against Monsanto for its alleged anticompetitive conduct in the biotech seed market.
TOTM Thanks to all of our participants and readers for the blog symposium–both the posts and the comments were engaging and thoughtful, and I hope these . . .
Thanks to all of our participants and readers for the blog symposium–both the posts and the comments were engaging and thoughtful, and I hope these entries will be helpful in the ongoing debate over credit cards and interchange fees.
TOTM I take to heart Jim’s claim that fraud is too-little discussed in this realm given its cost, and thus I’ll try my hand at it. . . .
I take to heart Jim’s claim that fraud is too-little discussed in this realm given its cost, and thus I’ll try my hand at it.
Every discussion of the industrial organization of credit card networks owes a debt to Bill Baxter. Baxter, a law professor and former Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, was one of the first (maybe the first?) scholars to discuss the economics of two-sided markets, in a paper, as it happens, on the economics of interchange fees in credit card networks.
Presentations & Interviews Last June, Christine Varney, then a lawyer in private practice, now President Obama’s nominee to be the next Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, warned that . . .
Last June, Christine Varney, then a lawyer in private practice, now President Obama’s nominee to be the next Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, warned that Google, not Microsoft, is the monopolist of the future. “For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem,” Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute. The U.S. economy will “continually see a problem — potentially with Google” because it already “has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising.” Concerns of this nature ultimately led Tom Barnett, the last Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, to threaten a Sherman Act monopolization lawsuit if Google went through with plans to buy Yahoo. Google, on the other hand, contends that the concerns are completely misplaced. “The nature of the Internet is just a fundamentally different world from the sale of packaged software or the bundling of software with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers),” according to Kent Walker, Google’s General Counsel. “The standard line we have is that competition is just one click away.”
Panelists:
Full audio is embedded below.
Presentations & Interviews Last June, Christine Varney, then a lawyer in private practice, now President Obama's nominee to be the next Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, warned that Google, not Microsoft, is the monopolist of the future.
Last June, Christine Varney, then a lawyer in private practice, now President Obama’s nominee to be the next Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, warned that Google, not Microsoft, is the monopolist of the future.
“For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem,” Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute. The U.S. economy will “continually see a problem — potentially with Google” because it already “has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising.” Concerns of this nature ultimately led Tom Barnett, the last Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, to threaten a Sherman Act monopolization lawsuit if Google went through with plans to buy Yahoo.
Google, on the other hand, contends that the concerns are completely misplaced. “The nature of the Internet is just a fundamentally different world from the sale of packaged software or the bundling of software with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers),” according to Kent Walker, Google’s General Counsel. “The standard line we have is that competition is just one click away.
TOTM Well, you probably know my answer to that one. I was interested to read Fred von Lohmann’s short take on the privacy aspects of the . . .
Well, you probably know my answer to that one.
I was interested to read Fred von Lohmann’s short take on the privacy aspects of the Google Books Settlement, available here.
