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Appropriate Liability Rules for Tying and Bundled Discounting: A Response to...
In recent years, antitrust scholars have largely agreed on a couple of propositions involving tying and bundled discounting. With respect to tying (selling one’s monopoly “tying” product only on the...
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Ninth Circuit Moves Tying Doctrine in the Right Direction. Will SCOTUS Follow?
The Ninth Circuit recently issued a decision that pushes the doctrine governing tying in the right direction. If appealed, the decision could provide the Roberts Court with an opportunity to do for...
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The Efficiency of Metering Tie-Ins
Have you ever had to get on your hands and knees at Office Depot to find precisely the right printer cartridge? It’s maddening, no? Why can’t the printer manufacturers just settle on a single design...
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Hazlett & Wright on The Law and Economics of Network Neutrality
Thomas Hazlett and I have posted The Law and Economics of Network Neutrality: The Federal Communications Commission’s Network Neutrality Order regulates how broadband networks explain their services to...
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The Economics of Drip Pricing at the FTC
The FTC is having a conference in the economics of drip pricing: Drip pricing is a pricing technique in which firms advertise only part of a product’s price and reveal other charges later as the...
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ICLE and TechFreedom File Joint Comments in Defense of a Free Internet
The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) and TechFreedom filed two joint comments with the FCC today, explaining why the FCC has no sound legal basis for micromanaging the Internet and...
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Debunking the Myth of a Data Barrier to Entry for Online Services
Recent years have seen an increasing interest in incorporating privacy into antitrust analysis. The FTC and regulators in Europe have rejected these calls so far, but certain scholars and activists...
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New Paper: The Problems and Perils of Bootstrapping Privacy and Data into an...
The CPI Antitrust Chronicle published Geoffrey Manne’s and my recent paper, The Problems and Perils of Bootstrapping Privacy and Data into an Antitrust Framework as part of a symposium on Big Data in...
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Does Apple’s “Discrimination” Against Rival Apps in the App Store harm...
A spate of recent newspaper investigations and commentary have focused on Apple allegedly discriminating against rivals in the App Store. The underlying assumption is that Apple, as a vertically...
View ArticleWright, Ginsburg, Lipsky and Yun: Connecting Vertical Merger Guidelines to...
[TOTM: The following is part of a symposium by TOTM guests and authors on the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines. The entire series of posts is available here.] This post is authored by Joshua D. Wright...
View ArticleComing Soon: New Merger Guidelines
The possibility of new Merger Guidelines has been much discussed in the antitrust community, particularly in light of appointment of the two new chief agency economists, Carl Shapiro and Joe Farrell,...
View ArticleComments on Updating the Merger Guidelines
Of course, the Merger Guidelines need to be updated. Except for efficiencies, they haven’t been updated in 17 years. Lawyers and economists with a regular antitrust practice may not require an...
View ArticleAmazon vs. Macmillan: It's all about control
The Amazon vs. Macmillan controversy has been beaten to a pulp in the blogosphere. See Megan McArdle, John Scalzi, Joshua Gans, Virginia Postrel, Lynne Kiesling, Lynne Kielsing and Lynne Kiesling,...
View ArticleThe Girl Scouts and Section 5
It turns out that the Girl Scouts price discriminate, i.e. they charge different prices for the same product in different parts of the country (HT: Knowledge Problem). Rumor has it that demand for...
View ArticlePrice Discrimination in Education
Tom Smith offers an entertaining and insightful perspective on the economics of higher education: Without passing moral judgment in any way, I will just observe it is astonishing that higher education...
View ArticleDoes the Supreme Court Deem Price Discrimination to be an “Anticompetitive”...
One of my summer writing projects is a response to Einer Elhauge’s recent, highly acclaimed article, Tying, Bundled Discounts, and the Death of the Single Monopoly Profit Theory. In the article, which...
View ArticleMore on Elizabeth Warren on Theory and Interpreting Data
With all the talk about the CFPB, Elizabeth Warren has been in the news lately. The blogs too. Most of the discussion has been about whether or not Timothy Geithner is a friend or foe to the...
View ArticleCopyright Conundrum
Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to Costco in the case of OMEGA SA v. Costco Wholesale Corp. (541 F. 3d 982 (2008)). At issue is whether the ‘first sale doctrine’...
View ArticleThe Roberts Court and the Limits of Antitrust
I’ve just finished a draft of a paper for an upcoming conference on the Roberts Court’s business law decisions. Volokh blogger Jonathan Adler, who directs the Center for Business Law and Regulation at...
View ArticleThe Law and Economics of Privatizing Alcohol Sales
Economist and occasional TOTM guest blogger Steve Salop (Georgetown) recently sent me the following questions spurred by the local debate over Governor McConnell’s proposal to private the retailing of...
View ArticleThe non-constitutional problem with a health care mandate
There’s been much teeth-gnashing following yesterday’s ruling by a Virginia judge that the “individual mandate” portion of Obamacare is unconstitutional. Among many other places, see the ongoing...
View ArticleEU Bans Insurer Price Discrimination Based on Gender
From the WSJ: The European Union’s highest court declared illegal the widespread practice of charging men and women different rates for insurance, roiling the industry and setting in motion an overhaul...
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An update on the evolving e-book market: Kindle edition (pun intended)
[UPDATE: Josh links to a WSJ article telling us that EU antitrust enforcers raided several (unnamed) e-book publishers as part of an apparent antitrust investigation into the agency model and whether...
View ArticleBrantley and its Implications for the Proposed Consumer Choice Antitrust...
Thom‘s excellent post highlights the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Brantley and describes its implications both in terms of rejecting Professor Elhauge’s claim that metering ties and mere surplus...
View ArticleSome Links
Competition on layaway fees Price discrimination over restaurant reservation times (HT: NY Times) Steve Calabresi & Larissa Price on the history of government granted monopolies and the...
View ArticleHighlights from Josh Wright’s Interview in The Antitrust Source
Anyone interested in antitrust enforcement policy (and what TOTM reader isn’t?) should read FTC Commissioner Josh Wright’s interview in the latest issue of The Antitrust Source. The extensive (22...
View ArticleThe 2015 International Competition Network’s (ICN) Unilateral Conduct...
In a recent post, I presented an overview of the ICN’s recent Annual Conference in Sydney, Australia. Today I briefly summarize and critique a key product approved by the Conference, a new chapter 6...
View ArticleLet’s Inject Antitrust Principles into Antidumping Law
In a Heritage Foundation paper released today, I argue that U.S. antidumping law should be reformed to incorporate principles drawn from the antitrust analysis of predatory pricing. A brief summary of...
View ArticleSome Good News (Maybe?) from DOJ’s Antitrust Division
I remain deeply skeptical of any antitrust challenge to the AT&T/Time Warner merger. Vertical mergers like this one between a content producer and a distributor are usually efficiency-enhancing....
View ArticleAmazon and Whole Foods, Historically Considered
Steve Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise, Department of Economics, at Ball State University In considering the importance of the Amazon merger with Whole Foods, some history is...
View ArticleAmazon/Whole Foods: What Me Worry?
Robert D. Atkinson is President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation One year after the Amazon/Whole Foods merger, prices at Whole Foods stores have gone down. Amazon Prime members...
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Deadweight loss from no monopoly
The once-mighty Blockbuster video chain is now down to a single store, in Bend, Oregon. It appears to be the only video rental store in Bend, aside from those offering “adult” features. Does that make...
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The Not Neutrality of Tech Reporting: Discussing the Economics of Lifting...
[TOTM: The following is part of a blog series by TOTM guests and authors on the law, economics, and policy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The entire series of posts is available here. This post is...
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Coronavirus treatments and vaccines: Patents … or a Prize?
[TOTM: The following is part of a blog series by TOTM guests and authors on the law, economics, and policy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The entire series of posts is available here. This post is...
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In the Fight Against Qualcomm, Apple’s Loss is Apple’s Gain
Apple’s legal team will be relieved that “you reap what you sow” is just a proverb. After a long-running antitrust battle against Qualcomm unsurprisingly ended in failure, Apple now faces antitrust...
View ArticleA Law & Economics Perspective on Ruth Bader Ginsburg
With the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, many have already noted her impact on the law as an advocate for gender equality and women’s rights, her importance as a role model for women, and her...
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It’s Not So Simple Who Owns “Your” Data
[TOTM: The following is part of a symposium by TOTM guests and authors marking the release of Nicolas Petit’s “Big Tech and the Digital Economy: The Moligopoly Scenario.” The entire series of posts is...
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Geo-Blocking: What is it Good For… A Surprising Amount, Actually.
The European Court of Justice issued its long-awaited ruling Dec. 9 in the Groupe Canal+ case. The case centered on licensing agreements in which Paramount Pictures granted absolute territorial...
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How US and EU Competition Law Differ
[This post adapts elements of “Should ASEAN Antitrust Laws Emulate European Competition Policy?”, published in the Singapore Economic Review (2021). Open access working paper here.] U.S. and European...
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Breaking Down the American Choice and Innovation Online Act
The American Choice and Innovation Online Act (previously called the Platform Anti-Monopoly Act), introduced earlier this summer by U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), would significantly change the...
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Is There Any Market Power in Online Display Advertising?
A lawsuit filed by the State of Texas and nine other states in December 2020 alleges, among other things, that Google has engaged in anticompetitive conduct related to its online display-advertising...
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Why There Needs to Be More, not Less, Consolidation in Video Streaming
Still from Squid Game, Netflix and Siren Pictures Inc., 2021 Recent commentary on the proposed merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery, as well as Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, often has included the...
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App Stores as Public Utilities?
In a new paper, Giuseppe Colangelo and Oscar Borgogno investigate whether antitrust policy is sufficiently flexible to keep up with the dynamics of digital app stores, and whether regulatory...
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Hunting for Labor-Market Monopsonies (and Giffen Goods)
If you wander into an undergraduate economics class on the right day at the right time, you might catch the lecturer talking about Giffen goods: the rare case where demand curves can slope upward. The...
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The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act Is Fatally Flawed
[The following is a guest post from Andrew Mercado, a research assistant at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an adjunct professor and research assistant at George Mason’s Antonin...
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DOJ’s Threatened Reign of Error: Proposed Criminal-Monopolization Prosecutions
The Biden administration’s antitrust reign of error continues apace. The U.S. Justice Department’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division has indicated in recent months that criminal prosecutions may be forthcoming...
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AICOA Is Neither Urgently Needed Nor Good: A Response to Professors Scott...
[TOTM: The following is part of a digital symposium by TOTM guests and authors on Antitrust’s Uncertain Future: Visions of Competition in the New Regulatory Landscape. Information on the authors and...
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The Bitter Fruits of Federal Antitrust ‘Reform’ Legislation
[TOTM: The following is part of a digital symposium by TOTM guests and authors on Antitrust’s Uncertain Future: Visions of Competition in the New Regulatory Landscape. Information on the authors and...
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The Case Against Self-Preferencing as a New Antitrust Offense
The practice of so-called “self-preferencing” has come to embody the zeitgeist of competition policy for digital markets, as legislative initiatives are undertaken in jurisdictions around the world...
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Price-Parity Clauses: The Good, The Bad, and the…Anticompetitive?
[The following is a guest post from Andrew Mercado, a research assistant at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an adjunct professor and research assistant at George Mason’s Antonin...
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