Comments on: Dont Call It A Comeback

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:51:36 +0000

entity,
there are other areas that were clearly very intellectually active, including the two you mention. I think I have in mind primarily global interest, but also the growth of antitrust/ IP and related issues. On top of that, I think there is a bit of a “perfect storm” effect arising out of the combination of those things along with the incredibly activity level at the Supreme Court, the inter-agency debates, the pending Congressional legislation(RPM and reverse payments at a minimum), and the change in administration.

Even if the current era is tied for 1st or 2nd, the general point holds: as far as intellectual activity goes, antitrust is far from dead.

I’ll have to think more about the study. But yes, a download measure isn’t likely to cut it.

By: antitrust entity

antitrust entity — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:03:54 +0000

Josh: you say “I suspect that right now is one of the most intellectually active antitrust eras in history.” Two comments. First, I’m not clear on what you have in mind. I suspect that the era when structure/conduct performance and no-fault monopolization were debated (roughly the 1960s), the early Chicago school era (say 1975-85), and the period when Microsoft, innovation, and globalization together caught everyone’s attention and the U.S. enforcement agencies bought into both game theory and econometrics (a decade beginning perhaps during the early 1990s) were all more intellectually active than today in the U.S. Do you have in mind the increased academic interest in competition policy abroad? If you are referring to the U.S., what are you thinking of? One thing that occurs to me is the recent work on 2-sided markets, which has had some influence but hasn’t generated as much intellectual activity as we saw in previous eras, I would say. Second, putting aside your provocative claim, I am curious whether you think you could design a study to tell whether an antitrust era is “intellectually active” — I don’t think we can measure this by SSRN downloads.

By: Peter G. Klein

Peter G. Klein — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:57:19 +0000

Josh, you got me thinking:

http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2009/04/14/antitrust-and-the-theory-of-the-firm/

By: Max

Max — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:18:03 +0000

Well argued. After many interviews with schools which were happy to let me consider antitrust as a hobby course, I was ecstatic to land at one that wanted it taught as part of the fundamental curriculum. In truth, antitrust as an intellectual enterprise has never been more exciting, because the next dominant theoretical paradigm — and one is coming — has yet to be stated.

By: Eric Goldman

Eric Goldman — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:11:55 +0000

Josh, we certainly view Antitrust as a core part of our high tech and IP curriculum at Santa Clara University, and we strongly encourage IP and high tech students to take the course regardless of which particular niche the students plan to pursue. Eric.

By: C.E. Petit

C.E. Petit — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:58:05 +0000

I would add another reason: Recognition of the potential for disintermediation, both legally and economically, combined with a mathematical examination of the distinction between a monopoly and a monopsony (hint to economists: there’s a divide-by-zero problem in the HHI when it’s applied to monopsonies).

One obvious example of this is the trade-book publishing segment (which isn’t coherent enough to constitute an “industry”, but that’s for another time). From the end-purchaser’s point of view, there is no direct antitrust problem, because there are so many different trade publishers out there. From the author’s point of view, however — the supplier, and therefore we’re in monopsony land — there is a serious problem, particularly if the “market” definition acknowledges the stated purpose of copyright in the IP Clause and restricts itself to contracting situations that result in a price to the supplier sufficient to maintain the supplier at above the poverty level. Add in the entry barriers imposed by the distribution system and things get really interesting… and would satisfy the HHI “overconcentration” definition in each of the six major category-fiction markets, presuming that HHI and the DoJ guidelines had any mathematical validity.