🧵 of EJ Antoni completely not understanding economic statistics, being partisan hack, or both

https://twitter.com/josephpolitano/status/1955041060197114136

x.com/garywinslett/s… x.com/garywinslett/s…

Planet Money had an interesting podcast tying together the BLS story with the broader questions about the role of economists and economics.

Some thoughts:
npr.org/2025/08/01/125… I think there's just a huge disagreement about what economists do. Everyone seems to want pure prediction.

There's the usual stuff about not predicting the Great Recession and Financial Crisis. I'm left wondering, compared to who? Which group of people saw it coming?

Highly misleading data from Lina Khan. This is all about new businesses, not small businesses.

Those new, growing businesses that will end up making jobs and innovations are not filing RPA lawsuits. They aren't doing anything on "more local control." The thing about small businesses is... They suck, in terms of job creation, productivity, etc.

The only good ones are a very few of the new ones.

And those ones don't stay small for long! Then they become big and then Khan would try to kill them

Michael Pettis, again in FT, ignoring how prices adjust.

Pro-tip: Write down a model. Check your equilibrium conditions. 🧵 of what happens when you don't Don't be confused by the currency/captial/trade stuff. What is he actually saying?

"country’s investment is constrained not by scarce saving but rather by inadequate domestic demand"

He is saying quantity is constrained, not by supply, but by demand. It's both!

The next stage of the Google AdTech case is remedies, with a hearing this Friday and initial proposals due May 5.

September 22nd is the other date to remember.

A little background as we move into this next stage. The liability phase is in the books.

Judge Brinkema found Google monopolized the open-web publisher ad-server market (DFP) and the ad-exchange market (AdX), plus an unlawful tying of the two products. Count III (advertiser networks) was tossed. static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/d…

Cracking open the 115‑page ruling.

Going in, two Supreme‑Court cases oomed large:

- Trinko (refusal‑to‑deal) and
- AmEx (two‑sided platforms)

I want to focus on those in this first pass 🧵

https://twitter.com/antitrust_bot/status/1912876835869974873

Judge says: Google’s sin is tying customers, not refusing rivals—so Trinko safe‑harbor ≠ available.

The FTC's trial against Meta is underway.

So far, it seems the FTC (and Zuckerberg in 2012) fundamentally misunderstands network effects and how they interact with competition.

A short thread on the economics of network effects as relevant to this case: First, network *effects* are not inherently anti-competitive or bad.

That could just mean that the value to users grows as more users sign up. Then we want more users to sign up!

I explained this in a 2-pager about scale. But just read "network" laweconcenter.org/resources/scal…

I appreciate that WSJ publishes opposing views.

But this tariff piece just demonstrates how weak these arguments are. Just a string of vague statements and non-sequiturs. Again, we see that claim about high tariffs and the 19th century. Any argument provided? Nop.e

It's not explicitly saying causation, but just hitting at it.

I’ll be live tweeting this (once we get to economics)

https://twitter.com/briancalbrecht/status/1897742203843137936

Here’s what we have coming up: 90 minutes from each side presenting on the economics, trying to expand on written submissions.

The goal is to flesh out the key differences between the two parties

Let's put aside the intra-FTC tensions here.

Commissioner Bedoya argues the FTC should study the egg supply chain. That's fair.

But the market dynamics look more consistent with competitive supply and demand than market manipulation.

https://twitter.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1891303303457161407

A key economic idea: A small supply drop (4%) can generate large price changes when short-run supply is highly inelastic.

With egg production, supply is essentially vertical in the short run due to chicken lifecycles.

https://x.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1891303751157191155

The DOJ won their case against Google Search. Now what?

This important RCT on Google Search users gives some clue into the possible outcomes. My reading is that it's not good for feasible remedies.

Let me explain.

https://twitter.com/nberpubs/status/1886807073146417288

First, everyone's favorite remedy: choice screens. Let's assume its not even mandated to avoid the legal issues.

The study shows making users actively choose between search engines only increases Bing's share by 1.1 percentage points.

Not promising!

This oped from Lina Khan is completely wrong on competition in general.

Somehow, its even worse on the unique AI aspects.

The story isn't about lack of competition - it's about how competition in tech markets actually works. Khan sees DeepSeek as evidence that big tech is failing to innovate.

But the newsworthy thing about DeepSeek is how it shows that even massive incumbents can't rest on their laurels in AI. It made news when it destroyed Nvidia's stock. nytimes.com/2025/02/04/opi…

Last week, I was able to chat with Oliver Hart at our @LawEconCenter event, "Substance over Slogans."

The focus was on contracts, the nature of the firm, and what his research means for antitrust. I was especially excited about his more recent work.

Here's what I learned: Hart's Nobel-winning research started with a basic but profound question:

Why would one firm buy another rather than just contract with them?

It's abstract but at the core of how we think about antitrust policy. If contracting works well, why do we see mergers?

The FTC's mad dash to file cases before the administration change continues.

This time it's Pepsi for... *checks notes*... giving volume discounts to big retailers? 🤔

The Robinson-Patman lunacy continues... A 3-2 Commission vote, rushed through in the final days, with both Republican commissioners dissenting. Not exactly a model of careful enforcement.

For context, this is the FTC's second RPA case in a month after a hiatus.

https://x.com/BrianCAlbrecht/status/1867310150953881919

California is burning. The tragedy of the destruction is unfathomable.

On top of that, many homes don’t have insurance. Why?

This is because of price controls. But CA's Prop 103 system goes way beyond normal insurance price controls into total dysfunction 🧵 Let's first talk rate suppression.

If an insurer shows they need a 40% increase to cover expected costs and get a fair return, but regulators only approve 15%, that's a 25% rate suppression.

When you buy a product, you pay twice:

1. Money to the company
2. Time to actually use it

Most economics ignores #2.

With Tom Phelan and @nickpretnar, we show how this consumer time use changes markups, firm entry, and efficiency. 🧵 The standard model says firms need constant markups for efficiency.

Once you add consumer time use, variables markups can be efficient and constant markups can be inefficient.

As we close out 2024, here are the top Economic Forces newsletters ICYMI. From me:

#1 Econ 101 is wrong about tariffs

economicforces.xyz/p/econ-101-is-… I tried a ton of newspapers for this and no one wanted it so I used it last second before the election.

It's the first piece I've converted from an oped to a newsletter. Maybe there's a lesson in there...

The FTC just filed its first Robinson-Patman case in ~25 years.

And while price discrimination can be concerning, I have some questions about this one... Who exactly is it going to help? Consumers? The case is about possible "price discrimination" between big chains and small retailers. The core claim is that Southern charges higher prices to mom & pop stores vs chains.

People were quite interested in the paper on Prospect Theory. Here is another one by Oprea you should know.

Behavioral anomalies we attribute to risk (probability weighting, loss aversion) look like responses to complexity, not risk.

Forget all the talk about lotteries. Paper, Forthcoming AER:

Key evidence: When people evaluate "mirrors" - deterministic versions of lotteries paying expected value - they show the same biases. drive.google.com/file/d/10EEvCP…

Prospect theory is wrong as a theory of choice between lotteries.

And we've already had the evidence for decades!

A new paper by Bouchouicha, Oprea, Vieider, and Wu shows how 🧵 dropbox.com/scl/fi/y0spy1g… Prospect Theory's "most distinctive implication" is called the "fourfold pattern".

When faced with risky choices, people were supposed to be:

- Risk-seeking for low probability gains
- Risk-averse for high probability gains
- The opposite for losses

Useful summary of the market power literature from Chad Syverson, especially helpful at the conceptual level.

- Why can we not usually identify just markups?
- Why do we need physical quantities, not just prices?
- Does any of this relate to inflation? nber.org/papers/w32871 Parts I liked: simple derivation of the Bond et al result that DEU markups equal 1.