http://www.truthonthemarket.com Academic commentary on law, business, economics and more Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:33:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A Senate panel approved the Leegin Bill on a voice vote (HT: Main Justice).  The story behind the link suggests that there is some Republican opposition brewing.  I suspect there will be hearings.  The Bill's findings make the following two observations: (3) Many economic studies showed that the rule against resale ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/19/leegin-legislation-update/ From the AP: Norway's Opera said Thursday that downloads of its browser more than doubled after Microsoft Corp. was forced to give European users a choice of Web software to settle European Union antitrust charges.  Microsoft started sending updates to Windows computers in Europe in early March ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/18/breaking-antitrust-news-imposing-duty-to-promote-rivals-helps-rivals/ The soda industry is trending toward vertical integration, which Coke and Pepsi acquiring their largest bottlers.  From the WSJ: Coke and PepsiCo sell concentrate to bottlers, which then bottle and distribute the soft drinks in their territories. Many of these smaller bottlers are small businesses that have been run ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/16/coke-pepsi-product-promotion-and-the-efficiencies-of-vertical-integration/ Justin Wolfers is one of my favorite economics bloggers in large part because of the empirical, evidence-based approach he takes to economics problems and policy issues.  As co-blogger Todd points out, Wolfers recently generated some data (JSTOR citation counts) that he argues supports the assertion that Hayek is out-classed by ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/16/are-friedman-marx-smith-and-keynes-really-out-of-hayeks-league/ The Texas Board of Education recently decided to add F.A. Hayek to the high school economics curriculum. The New York Times reports: In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/16/should-schools-teach-hayek/ A number of opponents of Obamacare, such as Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn, have criticized the President and his people for referring to pending proposals as "health insurance reform" rather than "health care reform." I suppose these critics think the President is engaging in a sleight of hand ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/15/an-honest-question-for-obamacare-supporters/ When I was a student at the University of Chicago Law School, our president lectured there. I didn't take any classes from him -- he taught stuff I wasn't interested in -- but I had friends who did; all raved. The other day, I opened up my copy of the ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/14/barack-obama-financial-journalist/ To expand on Geoff's post about concentration in the seed industry, there has been a consistent line of discussion throughout the day raising the specter of monopoly and anti-competitive behavior, not only in seed but also in livestock.  There are continual references to adverse price effects and limitations in choice ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/the-enforcers-agworkshop-dojusda/ A common theme throughout the day has been the declining number of seed companies--increasing concentration--and its effect. Except no one has talked about the effect.  Other than pointing to the structural change itself, no one seems to have any evidence relating to the effect of the change.  One farmer at ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/on-seed-industry-concentration-and-its-claimed-effects-dojusda-agworkshop/ The morning's panel of farmers represented a variety of perspectives, ranging from more reasoned to more reactionary.  Among the ideas suggested: More reasoned: Find a balance between food and fuel in the policy debate (though no clear directions how) Increase trade in global markets (always easy to talk about forcing other countries to ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/a-more-competitive-agriculture-agworkshop/ Let me say at the outset, some of my prior beliefs. First, I believe in the marketplace of ideas and think that more speech is generally better than less speech. I believe the Founders shared this belief and enshrined it in the “no law” component of the First Amendment. I ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/why-citizens-united-was-right/ Bill Northey, IA Ag Sec'y, sounds a bit like an economist (ah, turns out he has a degree in ag business and an MBA . . . ).  Yes, price of seeds has gone up, but so has yield, and so has overall value.  The issue, he says, is how ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/economics-versus-politics-in-antitrust-agworkshop/ As readers may know, Eric Holder was added to the workshop at the last minute (see the latest agenda here).  So the day starts out with Holder and Vilsack, and they are joined by Varney and Tom Miller (the Iowa AG) and a host of other politicos including Senator Grassley ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/some-political-theater-agworkshop/ As Geoff noted, we're stationed at the DOJ/USDA workshop to witness the goings on and provide some comments. US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack opened this session with a laundry list of statistics concerning rural America and the agriculture sector. The statistics focused on national concentration ratios and national averages, which ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/the-aggregation-problem-agworkshop/ Global warming critics have taken two primary approaches. First, deny the facts based on the incentives for scientists to fudge the data to get prestige and research dollars (see, for example, the East Anglia emails), based on the inherent limitations of humans to build global weather models to predict the ... http://www.truthonthemarket.com/2010/03/12/a-global-warming-hypothetical/