Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
03 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: competition law
The proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) assets by Netflix is already being cast as a landmark antitrust “test case.” If past deals are any guide, the critiques will follow a familiar script: narrow market definitions, selective data points, and headline-friendly market-share claims designed to trigger alarm. Yet in a video ecosystem defined by…
Netflix, WBD, and the Myth of the Streaming Monopoly
20 Jan 2026 1 Comment
in entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, managerial economics, organisational economics Tags: creative destruction
HBR: SUMMARY:THE CHALLENGE: Major companies competing in many industries struggle to stay abreast of rapidly changing technologies. ONE MAJOR CAUSE: They are typically organized into business units, each with its own set of functions. Thus the key decision makers—the unit leaders—lack a deep understanding of all the domains that answer to them.THE APPLE MODEL: The company is organized…
A functional organization helps Apple innovate
10 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, international economics
Tweet… is from page 11 of Menzie Chinn’s and Douglas Irwin’s superb 2025 textbook, International Economics: There is a parable about an entrepreneur who invents an amazing machine. Wheat, soybeans, lumber, and oil are fed into one end of the contraption. As if by magic, smartphones, coffee, and tea, and all manner of clothing and…
Quotation of the Day…
06 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice
Our colleague Thomas Stratmann writes about the political economy of Indian reservations in his excellent Substack Rules and Results. Across 123 tribal nations in the lower 48 states, median household income for Native American residents ranges from roughly $20,000 to over $130,000—a sixfold difference. Some reservations have household incomes comparable to middle-class America. Others face persistent…
Why Some US Indian Reservations Prosper While Others Struggle
21 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economics of education, economics of information, entrepreneurship, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand Tags: gender wage gap
15 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, economics of information, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation Tags: creative destruction
These people are saying it is there too. Though I am not quite sure what they (or anyone, for that matter) mean by AI: First, we argue that AI can already be seen in productivity statistics for the United States. The production and use effects of software and software R&D (alone) contributed (a) 50 percent…
“AI is everywhere but in the productivity statistics…”
14 Dec 2025 1 Comment
in economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: celebrity technologies, solar power, wind power
Policymakers would do well to heed energy experts like Schernikau and Stein. Chasing luxury beliefs do not cost well-heeled climate bureaucrats and renewables ideologues much, but the burdens of irrational energy policies will be borne by the world’s poorest. The real path forward lies in pragmatic, technology-neutral approaches that prioritise energy abundance over austerity.
Time to Stop Pretending Renewables Are Cheap
09 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, environmentalism
Tweet… is from page 223 of Art Carden’s and GMU Econ alum Caleb Fuller’s superb book, Mere Economics [original emphasis; footnotes deleted; link added]: The “finite resources” argument also begs the question because it assumes we know which materials are “resources” and which are not. Something is only a resource insofar as we can use…
Quotation of the Day…
06 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - USA Tags: competition law, creative destruction
This morning’s announced merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) would create a global media company of unprecedented scale. The transaction will also almost certainly attract scrutiny from antitrust regulators—most likely the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) Antitrust Division, rather than the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The deal would offer a direct test of the…
Metrics, Markets, and Merger Scrutiny: A Netflix-WBD Combination
06 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: competition law, creative destruction
Nations around the world are reassessing antitrust policy (generally called “competition policy” overseas). Governments, regulators, and industry leaders are increasingly asking whether traditional antitrust enforcement is holding back the “competitiveness” of domestic firms. The term now shows up in speeches by European commissioners, in UK government directives, in U.S. merger battles, and in Canadian legislative…
Is Competitiveness Transforming Competition Policy?
29 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, economics of information, entrepreneurship, F.A. Hayek, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, Ludwig von Mises, market efficiency, property rights, survivor principle, Thomas Sowell
21 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, macroeconomics, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction
Antitrust should center on dynamic market forces that drive major technological change, rather than on static “big is bad” market analysis, based on the work of the 2025 economics Nobel Prize winners. Antitrust enforcers in the United States and around the world could benefit by incorporating these insights into their policy development. Focus on Dynamic […]
Nobel Prize Winners’ Work Supports Dynamic Antitrust Enforcement
12 Nov 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought Tags: creative destruction
The growth of industry disrupted old economic patterns but produced undreamed-of wealthBy Phil Gramm and Michael Solon. Excerpts:”From the colossal changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution to the Digital Revolution of the last quarter-century, improvements in technology have created an array of jobs that far exceeded—in quantity and quality—the ones eliminated, elevating standards of living.””the…
The AI Revolution Will Bring Prosperity
01 Nov 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, managerial economics Tags: economics of smoking
ANALYSIS from the Economist: When lots of people smoked, there were many “price-elastic” consumers. In plain English, they were sensitive to increases in the cost of a cigarette. As more people have quit, however, only the most committed smokers are still puffing. Companies have responded by raising prices at an ever-quicker pace. MY COMMENT: In…
Irony: quitters are making tobacco companies rich
31 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation
There is a new AEJ Macro paper by Brynjolfsson, et.al. on how to value free goods. Here is one of the concrete measures: Using this approach, we estimate the reservation price [for giving up Facebook] to be $2,152 in 2003 US dollars. That is for the 2017 version of Facebook. Note this does not measure […]
Valuing free goods
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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