Michael Giberson Stanford’s alumni association magazine has a good article on recent economics Nobelist Al Roth. Several things about the article will trigger resistance among some free market readers, beginning with the title (“The Visible Hand”) and the subhead (A new breed of economist, Alvin Roth brings an engineering sensibility to fixing markets.). Deep into …
Michael Giberson The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that pesticide drifting across property lines onto an organic farmer’s crop does not constitute a trespass under state law. The court dismissed the trespass claim as well as accompanying claims asserting nuisance and negligence under laws that govern organic farming. The organic farming laws regulate what a …
Minnesota Supreme Court Rules Pesticide Drift is Not a Trespass, but Might Be a Nuisance Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Pale Rider is one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies. One of its central themes revolves around classic property rights concepts in a community of miners that includes a number of small pan miners and a family that has built a larger, hydraulic mining operation that essentially uses pressurized water to blast rock …
Lynne Kiesling Steve Horwitz’s column in The Freeman today is a great explication of why the phrase “market failure” is so problematic, and so often misused and abused in public policy analysis when employed to criticize market outcomes. Steve does a good job of explaining the origins of the phrase in the standard textbook case …
Michael Giberson A few weeks back Lynne drew attention to an interesting property dispute between neighboring farmers in Minnesota, currently the subject of legal action (see news summary here, related court decision here). In brief, the issue is pesticide drift from conventionally farmed crops onto a neighboring organic farm, and whether the organic farm can …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday’s announcement that the US DOJ would challenge the merger of AT&T’s wireless business with T-Mobile’s was surprising, and their approach to the merger seems to be more conventional and rooted in old HHI-market share and price effect metrics. Their analysis suggests that due to the substantial overlap in the existing separate AT&T …
Quality, Broadband, and Spectrum: What the Doj’s At&t/T-Mobile Lawsuit Misses Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday Google announced its purchase of Motorola Mobility, the device manufacturing half of the former Motorola. Today’s Wall Street Journal has a front page full of stories about this move, including “Bid Comes Amid Tougher Scrutiny” (You know how to read this even though it’s subscriber-only, right? Do a search at a news …
Google, Motorola, and the Effects of Vertical Integration Read More »
Lynne Kiesling One of the most beautiful aspects of market processes is how individuals create and take advantage of new profit and growth opportunities by creating value for others. Here’s a case in point that will resonate with many of you, given the outstanding diligence and insight of Mike’s fracking analyses here: clean water for …
Lynne Kiesling Here are some links that caught my eye recently: At Cheap Talk, Sandeep Baliga recounts a tale of the emergence of legal institutions in an underground economy on the south side of Chicago. This post prompted me to think hard this morning about whether it’s a misnomer to do as he does and …
Lynne Kiesling Alex Tabarrok made some comments on the proposed ATT/T-Mobile merger that reflect my own thinking on the subject: a la Williamson, the benefits of the cost savings from the merger may well exceed the reduction in consumer surplus from any price increase arising from going from 4 national competitors to 3. Alex also …
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