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In light of the @BostonFed #HouseDivided2019 conference this weekend, here are a few tweets about my paper in the ANNALS of @TheAAPSS: Antitrust Enforcement as Federal Policy to Reduce Regional Economic Disparities journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… 
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS This is part of a special issue on policy feedbacks, aimed at designing policies to meet current challenges while being politically durable and building momentum for further reform. Also featuring @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar and more journals.sagepub.com/toc/anna/685/1
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar My piece argues that regional economic inequality should be treated first and foremost as a national problem to be solved through federal policy, not just a matter for states and local governments
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar Over the last 40 years, regions of the US have bifurcated economically: places like NYC and SF have become much wealthier relative to the country, while many more places have seen economic stagnation and disinvestment. reuters.com/article/us-usa…
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar We often take a “local responsibility” view of urban economies: if a place is thriving, it must be doing something right, and if it’s falling behind, its civic leaders need to figure out how to stay competitive.
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar That’s not crazy—for an individual city or town it makes sense to pursue development unilaterally. And some places have been remarkably creative in adapting to economic dislocation, as @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb have described theatlantic.com/our-towns/
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb But cities have always competed economically with one another. What's changed in the last 40 years are the payoffs to winning and the penalties for losing. And those are determined largely by federal policy: public finance, infrastructure, competition, banking regulation.
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb The local responsibility view is also bad politics: it basically says regional economic struggles are the fault of those who live there. As @glastris notes, this is not a good way to win voters over washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janua…
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris So if we are going to return to a more geographically equal country, it’s likely going to take federal policy. Which makes sense: the federal government was an important contributor to regional convergence the first time around dukeupress.edu/from-cotton-be…
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris #Antitrust enforcement is an example of a federal policy that could have big regional benefits. @LongmanPhil @clairekelloway @briansfeldman @dblock94 have argued that corporate consolidation has taken a major toll on local economies around the country washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novde…
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris @LongmanPhil @clairekelloway @briansfeldman @dblock94 Breaking up monopolies is thus a federal regional convergence policy that can be implemented under current law.
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris @LongmanPhil @clairekelloway @briansfeldman @dblock94 It’s also likely to have strong policy feedbacks. When a company is broken into multiple successor firms, they are a collectively weaker lobbying force: 1) they're now competitors, 2) they don't have rents to spend. This means that successful breakups are likely to be durable
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris @LongmanPhil @clairekelloway @briansfeldman @dblock94 I defer to people like @openmarkets @superwuster @matthewstoller on how to rebuild our antitrust regime, but state AGs seem like a key piece. Because they're elected they're primed to treat antitrust as a political issue. But unlike legislators they have direct enforcement power.
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris @LongmanPhil @clairekelloway @briansfeldman @dblock94 @openmarkets @superwuster @matthewstoller So it’s exciting to see all these AGs filing lawsuits against Google and Facebook! washingtonpost.com/technology/201…
@BostonFed @TheAAPSS @awh @SamTrachtman @jonasmeckling @povertyscholar @JamesFallows @FallowsDeb @glastris @LongmanPhil @clairekelloway @briansfeldman @dblock94 @openmarkets @superwuster @matthewstoller That's all I've got. Many thanks to @bhbradlow @AustinFrerick @HBoushey for helpful feedback along the way. An open-access preprint of the paper is online at robertmanduca.com/projects/mandu… (no nice formatting, though...)
