Heterodox
Funny.Zero HedgeOnline Retail War Turns Ugly: Wal-Mart Responds To Amazon With Free 1-Day ShippingTyler Durden
Read More »Jonathan Tepper — Competition Is Dying, and Taking Capitalism With It
We need a revolution to cast off monopolies and restore entrepreneurial freedom. First of two excerpts from “The Myth of Capitalism.” Bloomberg OpinionCompetition Is Dying, and Taking Capitalism With It Jonathan Tepper See also a short review of The Myth of Capitalism A lot of times, when you read reviews about books on the economy, you end up wondering what the reviewer’s ‘priors’ are as people like to say in economics. You read the review and wonder where the biases of the reviewer...
Read More »Douglas A. Irwin — Stigler on Monopolies: “Competition is a Tough Weed, Not a Delicate Flower”
Many of Stigler’s views on monopoly and antitrust were consistent through the decades. Even after his concerns of monopoly began to recede, he continued to believe that monopolies and oligopolies were still prevalent in the American economy and that they “should be a source of serious concern for public policy.”... ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of BusinessStigler on Monopolies: “Competition is a Tough Weed, Not a Delicate Flower”Douglas...
Read More »Jon Walker — The ACA is Failing Because It Didn’t Account For Hospital Monopolies in Rural Areas
The logic behind the design of the Affordable Care Act does not hold up well when faced with the reality of how markets actually work outside cities. ACA exchanges were built on the fundamental idea that competition between regulated private insurance companies would improve quality and hold down prices, but competition is lacking in most rural counties. That’s very unlikely to ever change.... The InterceptThe ACA is Failing Because It Didn’t Account For Hospital Monopolies in Rural Areas...
Read More »ProMarket — The Rise of Market Power and the Decline of Labor’s Share
The two standard explanations for why labor’s share of output has fallen by 10 percent over the past 30 years are globalization (American workers are losing out to their counterparts in places like China and India) and automation (American workers are losing out to robots). Last year, however, a highly-cited Stigler Center paper by Simcha Barkai offered another explanation: an increase in markups. The capital share of GDP, which includes what companies spend on equipment like robots, is...
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