Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #FTChearings
Most recents (3)
Back to the question on vertical mergers (THREAD). I had a little spat with @geoffmanne a short while ago
He sent me a an interesting submission of the Global Antitrust Institute (GAI) of George Mason University to #FTChearings.
1/
He sent me a an interesting submission of the Global Antitrust Institute (GAI) of George Mason University to #FTChearings.
1/
They review 13 academic papers from 2009-2018 and conclude “these papers continue to support the conclusions that consumers mostly benefit from vertical integration”. Note, they write *integration*, but we need to know about vertical *mergers*.
2/
2/
He invited me to have a look at the papers they selected. Which I did. And the devil is in the detail.
First, one paper (Ashenfelter et al.) is about an horizontal merger in the beer industry, discussing the balance between price increases and efficiencies being passed-on.
3/
First, one paper (Ashenfelter et al.) is about an horizontal merger in the beer industry, discussing the balance between price increases and efficiencies being passed-on.
3/
Oversight hearing of the Federal Trade Commission is starting at 2:30pm. Live-streaming here. Expect FTC Commissioners to talk about how aggressively they enforce the law and/or take naps. commerce.senate.gov/public/index.c…
Chairman of the Commerce subcommittee, Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, is opening the hearing with a statement going after Google and Facebook hard on privacy. Wants to know what is going on with Facebook investigation. Wants a Federal privacy law. commerce.senate.gov/public/index.c…
Now @DickBlumenthal: "All too often the FTC has fallen short on enforcement... too often the problem" is "a lack of will." Wow. "This hearing is about finding out whether the FTC is ready and willing to take on hard problems."
Golden: how have these impacts been seen at small vs midsize vs large firms, on universities. #ftchearings
. @ProfDSchwartz: one enhancement in data would be looking at distinctions between types of NPE; also original owner vs acquirer/speculator. #ftchearings
. @ProfDSchwartz availability biases in data. Most lawsuits settle. Most settlements are confidential. So we don’t have the whole story on data. Anecdotes that infringers less likely to offer a settlement recently - maybe underlying negotiating position changed. #ftchearings
