Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday have become de facto national holidays of impulsive shopping, ostensibly offering a bevy of “great deals” to tempt consumers. A flood of media articles accompany this celebration of capitalism that masquerades as an event worthy of news coverage. Legions of outlets receive compensation from Amazon in exchange for driving... Read More
Common pricing algorithms can be used to coordinate prices among sellers, to the detriment of buyers. RealPage is the seminal case, but there are (alas) plenty of others. The problem is particularly acute in a two-sided transactional platform setting, where the platform influences—and sometimes coerces—the pricing decisions of its sellers. Take the case of Airbnb.... Read More
On November 18, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lost its landmark case against Meta over its acquisition of Instagram. The opinion was issued by Judge James Boasberg. The FTC spokesperson commented to the press decrying the loss as is usual agency practice. But the whole statement was far from usual. FTC spokesperson Joe Simonson told... Read More
Home affordability is a pressing issue. Young people often enter the workforce saddled with student debt, limited work options, and faced with exorbitant housing costs. For the millennial generation, the prospect of buying even a “starter home,” an option available to previous generations, has all but disappeared in most urban and suburban areas. The affordability... Read More
When it is funded, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP (colloquially known as food stamps) helps feed over 40 million people every month by dispensing $187 per average recipient. The program is especially critical for families—children represent about 40 percent of all SNAP recipients. Despite 78 percent of Americans (and 69 percent of Republicans)... Read More
Advocates of all stripes will pounce on a Nobel prize in economics to promote their particular policy agenda. They find a strand of the work by the winning economist, or a snippet from the Nobel committee, spin it into their narrative, and voila, their pet theory is proven right. Even a Nobel prize winner says so! We should take such claims with a grain of salt. I... Read More
The proposed merger of the Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) railroads would consolidate ownership and control of a significant part of the central arteries or “trunk lines” of the rail network in this country. Currently, four railroads control most of these key components of the rail network, especially for the east-west service, and... Read More
One of the favorite jabs of the left-punching commentator community—from Matt Yglesias, Alex Trembath, and the abundance-flavored podcast “Everyone Gets Pie”—has been to accuse progressives of being “Degrowthers.” While degrowth as a framework has been around for a while, its extremely limited presence in the zeitgeist is a relatively recent phenomenon. Modern progressives are not... Read More
If I had a dollar for every New York Times business story that attributed an industry-wide price hike in the post-Covid era to an outward shift in demand—that is, a story that blamed consumers for higher prices—I’d have, like, 25 dollars. Since the post-Covid era, the Times in particular, and the mainstream business press in... Read More
