Amazon's MFN Isn't Collusion, Antitrust Claim Overblown
Stacy and the CA AG say this is "blatant price fixing." It's not. The framing is doing work the evidence doesn't. It's argument by winks and nods. Most of what's quoted is Amazon enforcing a de facto MFN. "Don't let us be undercut" is not the same as "Amazon, Walmart, and Chewy agreed on a price." Even under California law. Yes, CA's Cartwright Acy is friendlier to plaintiffs than federal antitrust. But the brief is selling a hub-and-spoke story (even with some pure vertical parts) with Amazon as hub, vendors as intermediaries, Walmart and Chewy and Target as the rim. Hub-and-spoke still needs a rim (even tacit) under Cartwright. A rival raising price after seeing Amazon's move may be unilateral, even if Amazon hoped it would happen. So as usual, we have a complex antitrust case that people will sell as some simple story.
No Evidence Juries Improve Outcomes Beyond Vague Enforcement Claims
What's missing from this: any argument that juries reach better outcomes by any metrics besides some vague comments that more enforcement is better https://t.co/Pqvp2WnMGx
Pricing Discretion Doesn't Equal Antitrust Market Power
Klein (1993) is supposedly on tying. It's so much more. Holdups, market power definitions. The nugget throughout is that pricing discretion is not the same thing as antitrust market power. I'm over at @TOTMblog on this foundational paper https://t.co/uhhV5pLuDn
Proposed “Dashboard” Dilutes Consumer Welfare, Mislabels Economics
Some scholars want to ditch consumer welfare for a "dashboard" that also weighs democracy, inequality, small business, privacy, and more. They claim it's grounded in modern economics. It isn't. New paper with @ErikHovenkamp, forthcoming at George Mason Law Review https://t.co/NpYTzcnt44
New Data Illuminates Business Formation Stages at Conference
We are starting day 2 of LAEF/@LawEconCenter’s Market Power conference John Haltiwanger is helping build the data to better understand the stages of business formation https://t.co/TvJgsb1gNK
FTC Forces Visa to Police Banks' Account Closures
"IOW, the FTC isn't just telling Visa not to debank people; it's telling Visa to police its bank customers' individual account-closure decisions—decisions Visa has no visibility into and no practical ability to control."
Oil Price Spikes Can Boost US Economy
People assume oil shocks are bad. But is that true for the US? After all, we are net exporters. This week's newsletter works through some simple models and calculations https://t.co/wohddXGXAR
Early Antitrust Action Prevents Monopoly Power
It’s because they had a monopoly. If only competition authorities had stepped in when they first wanted to
Rigid European Labor Markets Hinder Demand Shock Response
Why are Europe’s rigid labor markets so bad? They turn a flow into a stock, which generates not great reactions to demand shocks. https://t.co/TqgDgtU9nj
Cintrini Resorts to Zandi’s Stats Amid Worsening
Just when you think it can’t get worse we got Cintrini appealing to Zandi “stats”
AI Boosts Productivity, Unemployment Fears Misguided
Looks like a model of AI induced unemployment but complete nonsense. there’s AI actually augmenting labor productivity and some separate labor demand shock (even though labor demand is derived demand from productivity)
Labor Market Dynamism Drives Real Competitive Advantage
Labor market dynamism is the real differentiator. I make sure to stress it in my public talks https://t.co/jO6lNyPm8W
Price Controls Trigger Chaotic, Uneven Resource Allocation
I'm super excited for my new paper with @ATabarrok and Mark Whitmeyer: "Chaos and Misallocation under Price Controls" During the 1973-74 gasoline crisis, the U.S. had about a 9 percent national shortfall. But that was far from evenly spread out. Over...