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August Blog ‘o Blogs

By  |  August 19, 2010

 

Our August Blog o’ Blogs is full of questions: How should e-books be priced? Can competition help revive the Russian economy? Does the FTC have too much time on its hands? Can antitrust deal constructively with publicity, privacy, and innovation issues? Is antitrust the new prohibition weapon against beer and consumption? And, finally, Randy Picker answers perhaps the most vital question: Should we have cupcakes every afternoon?

Enjoy the rest of the summer—and if you mislay this email, visit the commentary section at the CPI Website where we keep the monthly collections in the From the Editor section.

 

Through keen negotiating, the publishers have forced Amazon to (a) pay them less per book and (b) sell fewer of their books. Not something you see everyday.

by Donald Marron, Christian Science Monitor

Russia’s high degree of economic inequality sustains the majority’s preference for redistribution rather than private entrepreneurship.

That 70’s Show in Russia
by Aleh Tsyvinski & Sergei Guriev, Project Syndicate

There are a lot fewer Hart-Scott-Rodino reportable deals. It means the staff has more time to look at consummated deals and, also, there’s no such thing as a deal too small to worry about.

FTC Antitrust Blitz: ‘Done Deals’ Unraveled Upon Agency Review of Past Mergers

by Jenna Greene, National Law Journal

Competition policy plays a critical role in defining property’s end, limiting the scope of all recognized property rights when those rights enable owners to stifle meaningful competition.

by Steven Semeraro, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

The days of pervasive permission-less profiling of consumers to amass, maintain, and extend market power via mass arbitrage of consumers’ privacy are numbered.

But the competition authorities are referees of the market game. They must ensure that the players are penalized only for breaking the rules, not for winning.

Antitrust in a High Tech World
by Tim Muris,  Wall Street Journal

Call it states’ rights kool-aid with a chaser of economic protectionism.  A strange brew indeed.

Who CARES About Beer and Wine Consumers?

by Josh Wright, Truth on the Market

We should have cupcakes every afternoon.

Food Truck Rules: Be Sweet on Competition
by Randy Picker,  Chicago Tribune