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Truth on the Market

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

Lambert’s Latest on RPM in the William and Mary Law Review

Posted on May 28, 2009
The law and economics of RPM have been a frequent topic of discussion here for Thom and I especially, ranging from the empirical evidence on RPM, to competitive resale price maintenance without free riding, to the inappropriate use of the term “price-fixing” by journalists some who should know better to describe RPM, to the Commission’s [...

Supreme Court Nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor and Corporate and Securities Law

Posted on May 26, 2009
I have been asked a few times today to opine, as a corporate and securities law scholar, on President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. (Cnn.com has a couple of quotes reflecting my thoughts.) I have three main comments: First, this is a pivotal time in American securities and corporate law jurisprudence...

Hylton, Manne and Wright in The Deal on Varney’s Withdrawal of the Section 2 Report

Posted on May 26, 2009
Available here. An excerpt: But wholesale rejection of the document — the most complete statement to date on the law and economics of Section 2 — because of disagreement with some of its positions is irresponsible and premature. And the rejection of specific conclusions from among the range of possibilities discussed in the report without any [...

If A Tree Falls in a Forest and Nobody Hears It, Did the Bush Antitrust Division Cut It Down?

Posted on May 25, 2009
The NYT ran an unsigned editorial on “Intel and Competition” that, quite frankly, doesn’t make much sense to us. It offers two basic arguments: (1) that the Bush administration DOJ is responsible for the state of Section 2 law requirement that plaintiffs demonstrate actual consumer harm, and (2) that foreign antitrust jurisdictions’ pursuit of enforcement [...

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Peter Klein Throws Cold Water on New Economy Talk

Posted on May 25, 2009
Peter Klein of Organizations and Markets blog-fame kicked off the George Mason/ Microsoft Conference on the Law and Economics of Innovation a few weeks back with a talk on “Does the New Economy Need New A Economics?” His answer: No. This week, Peter takes aim at Wired’s Chris Anderson who predicts a massive shift toward [...

CPI Webinar: Economic and Legal Analysis of Collusion

Posted on May 23, 2009
Competition Policy International has announced its next Webinar, featuring Professors Bajari and Abrantes-Metz on the economic and legal analysis of collusion. I’ve had a blast doing these lectures the last couple of weeks teaching Antitrust Economics 101, and will be finishing up the third lecture this week (after covering basic demand side and supply side [...

RPM Workshop Testimony

Posted on May 20, 2009
I’ll be testifying tomorrow at the Federal Trade Commission hearings on Resale Price Maintenance. My panel will focus on rule of reason analysis of RPM Post-Leegin. There is a bit of awkwardness testifying about different modes of rule of reason analysis with legislation that would restore the Dr...

Hylton, Manne and Wright in Forbes on Intel, Section 2 and Monopolization in the US

Posted on May 18, 2009
Available here. Here’s an excerpt: It turns out that it is a very difficult business to identify the few cases when low prices and aggressive competition might perversely end up harming consumers in the long run rather than simply making them better off...

Zywicki on Chrysler and The Rule of Law

Posted on May 14, 2009
My colleague Todd Zywicki has a must read op-ed in the WSJ. Here’s an excerpt: The Obama administration’s behavior in the Chrysler bankruptcy is a profound challenge to the rule of law. Secured creditors — entitled to first priority payment under the “absolute priority rule” — have been browbeaten by an American president into accepting only [...

The EU Intel Decision, Error Costs, and What Happens in the US?

Posted on May 14, 2009
Reacting to the EU fines imposed on Intel, Geoff raises a nice point about the difficulty of constructing the but-for world in antitrust cases generally, but particularly in cases where prices are falling. This discussion reminded me of Thom’s excellent post responding to the NYT editorial and an AAI working paper and putting theoretical anticompetitive [...

Good Stuff (Including Josh Wright) on Intel in Today’s WSJ

Posted on May 14, 2009
Our own Josh Wright is quoted in the lead article in today’s Wall Street Journal. Josh opines that the European Union’s record $1.45 billion fine against Intel for lowering its prices on granting “exclusionary” rebates on microprocessors means that FTC action against Intel is “much more likely than it was two weeks ago...

A quick note on Intel

Posted on May 13, 2009
I am curious about something. AMD and Intel have been competing head to head for more than 15 years, at least since AMD released its Intel 386 clone in the early 90s. In that time, inarguably, microprocessor prices have plumeted and processing power and other features have increased dramatically (I’m aware that we [...

Patent Holdup, Antitrust and Innovation: Harness or Noose?

Posted on May 12, 2009
Expanding on the themes in this post from the TOTM symposium book review of Professor Carrier’s new book on “Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law” to encourage innovation, I’ve posted an essay co-authored with a very talented former student and research assistant, Aubrey Stuempfle...

Reminder: Antitrust Economics 101 Starts Tomorrow

Posted on May 12, 2009
Tomorrow I’ll be starting a three week interactive web seminar on basic microeconomic concepts that form the basis of antitrust analysis. The lectures will be available through Competition Policy International?s Learning Center on three consecutive Wednesdays at 12 pm EST: May 13, 20, and 27th...

Section 2 Report Quick Reactions

Posted on May 12, 2009
A few quick reactions to the repudiation of the Section 2 Report, and more importantly, what it means for the future of monopolization enforcement: First, the most disappointing thing about the withdraw of the Report and this announcement is that it is incredibly dismissive about the long hours of work put into this project by both [...

Neo-Chicago Meets Evidence-Based Antitrust

Posted on May 12, 2009
Dan Crane has an excellent essay (”Chicago, Post-Chicago and Neo-Chicago“) reviewing Bob Pitofsky’s Overshot the Mark volume. Here’s Dan’s brief abstract: This essay reviews Bob Pitofsky’s 2008 essay compilation, How Chicago Overshot the Mark: The Effect of Conservative Economic Analysis on U...

Coda: Varney withdraws Section 2 Report

Posted on May 11, 2009
I guess it comes as little surprise that Christine Varney has withdrawn the Section 2 Report. The comments made in the statement withdrawing the Report indicate . . . well, that Varney isn’t convinced by reading this blog, among other things. Coming on the heels of our Section 2 Symposium, the news is jarring, although [...

Section 2 Symposium: David Evans on Tying (Antitrust’s Greatest Intellectual Embarrassment)

Posted on May 07, 2009
David Evans is Head, Global Competition Policy Practice, LECG; Executive Director, Jevons Institute for Competition Law and Economics, and Visiting Professor, University College London; and Lecturer, University of Chicago. I?d like to propose a contest for the greatest intellectual embarrassment of antitrust...

Section 2 Symposium: Wrap Up

Posted on May 07, 2009
Geoffrey Manne is Director, Global Public Policy at LECG and a Lecturer in Law at Lewis & Clark Law School. He is a founder of Truth on the Market. Josh Wright is Assistant Professor at George Mason University School of Law and a former Scholar in Residence at the FTC...

Section 2 Symposium: Herbert Hovenkamp on Predatory Pricing and Bundled Discounts

Posted on May 06, 2009
Herbert Hovenkamp is Professor of Law at The University of Iowa College of Law. The baseline for testing predatory pricing in the Section 2 Report is average avoidable cost (AAC), together with recoupment as a structural test (Report, p. 65). The AAC test or reasonably close variations, such as average variable cost or short-run marginal [...

Section 2 Symposium: Bruce Kobayashi on Predatory Pricing and the Relevant Measure of Cost

Posted on May 06, 2009
Bruce Kobayashi is a Professor of Law at George Mason Law School. Dimming the Court’s Brooke Group Bright Line Administrable Rule? As noted in my earlier post, the Supreme Court’s Brooke Group rule is held out as the primary example of an administrable bright line rule aimed at controlling the costs of type I error...

Section 2 Sympoisum: Welcome to the Final Day

Posted on May 06, 2009
Geoffrey Manne is Director, Global Public Policy at LECG and a Lecturer in Law at Lewis & Clark Law School. He is a founder of Truth on the Market. Josh Wright is Assistant Professor at George Mason University School of Law and a former Scholar in Residence at the FTC...

Section 2 Symposium: Alden Abbott on the International Perspective

Posted on May 06, 2009
Alden Abbott is Associate Director, Bureau of Competition, Federal Trade Commission. The views expressed below are solely attributable to the author. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Trade Commission or of any individual Federal Trade Commissioner...

Section 2 Symposium: Bill Page on Microsoft’s “Forward-Looking” Monopolization Remedy

Posted on May 06, 2009
William Page is a Marshall M. Criser Eminent Scholar in Electronic Communications and Administrative Law at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law. The DOJ?s Section 2 Report speaks in general terms about the costs and benefits of various remedies for monopolization...

Section 2 Symposium: Tim Brennan on the Relationship Between Regulation and Antitrust

Posted on May 06, 2009
Tim Brennan is a professor of public policy and economics at UMBC and a senior fellow with Resources for the Future (RFF). When I first started working in antitrust at the Justice Department over thirty years ago?there?s a hard reality to accept?the Antitrust Division was then embroiled in an effort to reform the regulation of oil [...

Section 2 Symposium: Herbert Hovenkamp on Patents and Exclusionary Practices

Posted on May 06, 2009
Herbert Hovenkamp is Professor of Law at The University of Iowa College of Law. One interesting aspect of the DOJ Report on Section 2 is the scant, episodic treatment of IP issues. The Report rejects the presumption of market power for patent ties (p...

Section 2 Symposium: Bill Kolasky on Proving Market Power

Posted on May 06, 2009
William Kolasky is a partner in WilmerHale’s Regulatory and Government Affairs Department, a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group, and a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice...

Section 2 Symposium: Josh Wright on An Evidence Based Approach to Exclusive Dealing and Loyalty Discounts

Posted on May 06, 2009
Josh Wright is a Professor of Law at George Mason Law School, a former FTC Scholar in Residence and a regular contributor to Truth on the Market. The primary anticompetitive concern with exclusive dealing contracts is that a monopolist might be able to utilize exclusivity to fortify its market position, raise rivals? costs of distribution, and [...

Section 2 Symposium: Tim Brennan on Predation, Exclusion, and Complement Market Monopolization

Posted on May 06, 2009
Tim Brennan is a professor of public policy and economics at UMBC and a senior fellow with Resources for the Future (RFF). As evidenced by this on-line symposium, the handling of cases under the rubrics “monopolization,” “single firm conduct”, or “abuse of dominance” continues to be debated by the competition policy community...

Section 2 Symposium: Howard Marvel on Safe Harbors for Short Term Exclusive Dealing Contracts

Posted on May 06, 2009
Howard P. Marvel is Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and Professor of Law in the Moritz College of Law, both at The Ohio State University. Exclusive dealing prevents the bait-and-switch behavior by dealers who convert customers drawn by one brand to the products of its rivals...

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