Regulation

The Political Economy of Uber’s Multi-dimensional Creative Destruction

Over the past week it’s been hard to keep up with the news about Uber. Uber’s creative destruction is rapid, and occurring on multiple dimensions in different places. And while the focus right now is on Uber’s disruption in the shared transportation market, I suspect that more disruption will arise in other markets too. Start …

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Rent-seeking Diary: State Dealer Franchise Laws and Tesla

By now you’ve probably heard that last week the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission passed a rule stipulating that automobile sales in the state cannot be direct-to-consumer, and must instead take place via dealer franchises. Tesla Motors was the clear target of this regulation, with its innovative electric vehicles and direct-to-consumer sales model. New Jersey …

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Permissionless Innovation in Electricity: the Benefits of Experimentation

Last Monday I was scheduled to participate in the Utility Industry of the Future Symposium at the NYU Law School. Risk aversion about getting back for Tuesday classes in the face of a forecast 7″ snowfall in New York kept me from attending (and the snow never materialized, which makes the cost even more bitter!), …

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Politicized Implementation of U.s. Oil Import Quotas, 1959-1973

The oil import quota system in place from 1959 to 1973 restricted imports to an amount equal to the difference between the federal government’s estimate of domestic oil demand and the estimate of domestic oil supply. But, of course, nothing in industry-protection policy can be easy, so the policy contained a number of adjustments and …

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Bruce Yandle on Bootleggers & Baptists

Bruce Yandle’s “bootleggers & Baptists” model of political coalition formation is one of the most useful models in the political economy of regulation (and one that both Mike and I employ frequently, as seen by our many posts using the model). Here’s a great new Learn Liberty video featuring Bruce himself describing how coalitions of …

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Disruptive Innovation and the Regulated Utility

Over the weekend the New York Times ran a good story about how rooftop solar and regulatory rules allowing net metering are putting pressure on the regulated distribution utility business model: The struggle over the California incentives is only the most recent and visible dust-up as many utilities cling to their established business, and its …

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Adam Thierer on Regulating Media Platforms

The Mercatus Center’s Adam Thierer analyzes communications technologies and the policies influencing the development and use of them, and I’ve always found his work extremely valuable in my own thinking. Adam and Brent Skorup have a new Mercatus study on lobbying in the information technology sector, A History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information …

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