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Truth on the Market

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Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 00:51:38

Varney Gets It Right on RPM

Posted on January 28, 2010
Tomorrow I will be presenting my paper, A Decision-Theoretic Rule of Reason for Minimum Resale Price Maintenance, at the Next Generation of Antitrust Scholarship Conference at NYU Law School. (Kudos to Danny Sokol for co-organizing what promises to be a terrific event!) My paper criticizes four proposed approaches to evaluating RPM post-Leegin, and [...

Varney on the Merger Guidelines

Posted on January 27, 2010
Yesterday the final Horizontal Merger Guidelines Review workshop was held and, among other antitrust luminaries, our own Josh Wright participated. We look forward to a report from the front lines. Meanwhile, Assistant Attorney General Varney’s comments are available on the interwebs...

Finally, some real help for California!

Posted on January 27, 2010
Oregonians, my fellow residents of the Beaver State (and, by the way, the only state in the Union with a different image on each side of its flag), voted yesterday to increase top marginal income tax rates and corporate tax rates, including minimum corporate tax rates and the addition of a tax on gross receipts...

The SEC gets that old time climate religion. Hallelujah, praise Gore.

Posted on January 27, 2010
Today the SEC voted 3-2 to approve an interpretive release offering guidance to companies on disclosure obligations as they relate to climate change. Commissioners Casey and Paredes voted to reject the proposed guidance. Everyone can agree that companies may have an obligation under Regulation S-K to disclose risks arising from, among other many things, climate change [...

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Russian Retail Trade Law and Government Barriers to Entry

Posted on January 26, 2010
A new Russian retail trade law is scheduled to (at least partially) go into effect on February 1st. The new retail trade law, with the support of the national antitrust authority and Prime Minister Putin amongst others, has three essential features: (1) limiting the operation of chains to no more than 25 percent of total [...

Ticketmaster-Live Nation Settles

Posted on January 25, 2010
Here are the details on the conditions imposed: Under the conditions set forth by the Justice Department, the merged company would need to sell off a unit that sells tickets to college sporting events, and would need to license its ticketing software to rival concert promoter AEG Live, so that company can launch a competing service...

“In the long run, my friend, it’s your theory that’s dead”

Posted on January 25, 2010
Russ Roberts’ brilliant and eagerly-awaited Keynes vs. Hayek rap video is here. It’s the best economics pop music since Merle Hazzard. Here are the lyrics: We?ve been going back and forth for a century [Keynes] I want to steer markets, [Hayek] I want them set free There?s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it [Hayek] Blame [...

Note to Simon Johnson: I do not think antitrust means what you think it means

Posted on January 21, 2010
Simon Johnson is at it again, advocating the use of antitrust to break up the banks because they are, you know, big, and antitrust is about busting up big companies, right? As Josh suggested back in July, the idea is gaining momentum, it seems. The Financial Times is also pushing the idea...

Monsanto’s licensing case victory

Posted on January 20, 2010
As regular readers know, we’ve been following with (critical) interest the antitrust issues surrounding the seed industry in general and Monsanto in particular. See, for example posts by me or Mike here, here and here. As you may not know, Monsanto and Pioneer (a DuPont subsidiary) have been engaged in a heated contract and patent dispute [...

The problem with paper payments

Posted on January 20, 2010
Jim Van Dyke (who contributed to our interchange symposium) has an interesting post up today recounting a brief glimpse of life without payment cards: What would a day without payment cards be like? I had a glimpse into that just this morning, when my usual Bay Area morning routine of using my prepaid card to get [...

Gretchen Morgenson Calls for Greater Protection (?) of High-Risk Consumers of Credit

Posted on January 18, 2010
Gretchen Morgenson doesn?t want poor people to have access to consumer credit. At least, that?s what I think she?s saying in her rambling NYT column this week. Congress and federal regulators have recently taken a number of actions that will make it tougher for riskier customers to access consumer credit...

Antitrust in Russia

Posted on January 18, 2010
I will be doing a series of talks in Moscow and Kiev over the next several days on antitrust issues in light of the new Russian trade law, which includes a number of restrictions on vertical contractual arrangements between suppliers and retailers. Blogging will likely be light, but if anybody has advice on things to [...

Shocking

Posted on January 18, 2010
Law professors confess, at least when their own money is at stake, that demand curves slope downward.

The NFL As A Single Firm?

Posted on January 13, 2010
When I first read Josh’s post of antitrust links below, I thought “Drew Brees? Surely not THAT Drew Brees.” Turns out, it IS that Drew Brees. I was very interested to read the QB’s take on American Needle and his plead for the Supreme Court to reject the NFL’s petition to be deemed “a single [...

Some Antitrust Links

Posted on January 11, 2010
Drew Brees on American Needle (HT: Antitrust Review) Is the DOJ gearing up to litigate Ticketmaster-Live Nation? (my favorite quote comes from this linked article: “Politically, you wouldn’t get in trouble for challenging the deal because everyone hates it, but articulating an antitrust theory is more difficult”) A wrap up of ACP’s Section 5/ Intel symposium Judge Patel [...

Evading Section Two, Two Ways: The Commission’s Cases Against McCormick and Intel

Posted on January 09, 2010
Yesterday, in my contribution to the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog’s Section 5 symposium, I discussed the FTC’s use of Section 5 to evade the tough standards facing plaintiffs bringing Section 2 claims and how that evasion was likely to cost consumers by stripping out the error-cost protections embedded in modern monopolization law...

David Evans Makes the Case Against Revamping Consumer Protection

Posted on January 08, 2010
Economist, co-author, and sometimes TOTM guest David Evans (UCL, University of Chicago School of Law) has an excellent note on “Why Now is Not the Right Time To Revamp Consumer Protection,” based on remarks made at the New York Federal Reserve Board-New York University Conference on Regulating Consumer Financial Products yesterday in New York...

The case against the section 5 case against Intel, redux (cross-posted)

Posted on January 08, 2010
As Josh noted in cross-posting his comment on Section 5 and Intel, Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog is hosting a symposium on the role of FTC Act Section 5 in light of Intel. Josh’s contribution at AC&P is available here, along with the other symposium participants...

The faulty logic of “protecting” consumers from the absence of annual fees

Posted on January 07, 2010
Our friend and University of Chicago law professor, Omri Ben-Shahar, fresh off a run participating in our credit card interchange fee symposium, has penned a guest post following up on our ongoing discussion of annual fees: There is no annual fee for shopping at Wal-Mart, but there is an annual fee for shopping at Sam?s Club...

A Christmas story

Posted on January 07, 2010
The best gift I got this Christmas ? other than my collection of DVDs about the Pittsburgh Steelers six Super Bowl titles ? was the chance to overhear a story that beautifully captures what I think is the biggest obstacle to sensible policy making at all levels...

The Case Against the Section 5 Case Against Intel (Cross-Posted)

Posted on January 07, 2010
Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog is hosting a symposium on The Role of FTC Act Section 5 in Light of Intel. Today’s contributions include Dan Crane (Michigan), Keith Hylton (BU), Bob Lande (Baltimore) and me. Up tomorrow will be TOTM’s Geoff Manne, Sean Heather (US Chamber), and Herbert Hovenkamp (Iowa)...

Is Antitrust Too Complicated for Federalist Judges? Forthcoming In Journal of Law and Economics

Posted on January 06, 2010
I’m very pleased to report that my paper with Michael R. Baye (of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and formerly Director of the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission), Is Antitrust Too Complicated For Generalist Judges: The Impact of Economic Complexity and Judicial Training on Appeals, has been accepted for [...

Credit card annual fees and the self-appointed consumer protectors

Posted on January 06, 2010
Adam Levitin has a blog post up responding to Todd Zywicki’s recent WSJ editorial on credit card interchange fees. As most readers know, this is a topic of significant interest around here, and Josh blogged about Todd’s op-ed just yesterday...

Yet More Evidence Against the DOJ’s Antitrust Plantings

Posted on January 06, 2010
A couple weeks ago, Geoff wrote concerning the DOJ’s misguided antitrust interest in Monsanto. With that in mind, I was very interested to see today’s announcement that Monsanto’s earnings and gross margins are significantly off for its fiscal first quarter...

Rhetoric Versus Reality, Part IV

Posted on January 06, 2010
Then-candidate Barack Obama, debating Senator Clinton on how to reform health care, January 31, 2008: But the last point I want to make has to do with how we’re going to actually get this plan done. You know, Ted Kennedy said that he is confident that we will get universal health care with me as president, [...

Zywicki on Interchange Fee Legislation

Posted on January 05, 2010
My colleague (and TOTM Credit Card Symposium participant — posts here and here) Todd Zywicki has an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today on Congressional legislation aimed at regulating interchange fees. Here’s an excerpt detailing the predictable economic consequences of the legislation: What would happen if the Merchants Payments Coalition gets its way and [...

Common Errors on Exams

Posted on December 31, 2009
I’ve been grading Contracts exams for the last week or so. This is where I earn my pay. It’s an awful job. The students take only one exam for the entire semester, so I really have to be careful to make sure I’m evaluating everyone fairly...

My Top Ten Antitrust Publications of the Year

Posted on December 30, 2009
Danny Sokol posted his blog’s list of top antitrust publications for the year. The big winners were Einer Elhauge, Bundled Discounts, and the Death of the Single Monopoly Profit Theory, 123 Harvard Law Review 397 (2009), and Nathan Miller, Strategic Leniency and Cartel Enforcement, American Economic Review...

The Collected Works of Henry G. Manne

Posted on December 29, 2009
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...

Shelf Space Contracts and Slotting Fees in Israeli Supermarkets

Posted on December 29, 2009
A TOTM reader sends me the following interesting development on an emerging dispute over shelf space competition in Israeli supermarkets: Israel?s Super-Sol to Aggressively Pursue Stocking Fees and Perhaps its Private Label Positioning Tel Aviv?Stocking shelves in an Israeli supermarket will henceforth cost manufacturers and distributors money, it was announced by the mega Super-Sol chain, according to [...

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