Economic Analysis and Competition Policy Research

Home   •   About   •   Analytics   •   Videos

When Market Forces Can’t Be Counted on to Protect Skiers

By Hal Singer
January 10, 2025
Image: Long lines form at Park City amid a ski patrol strike on Dec. 29, 2024. (Mariah Maynes/KSL NewsRadio)
Skiers are an admittedly unsympathetic crowd. At least the jetsetters who fly around the country chasing the toniest resorts like Park City.  Local skiers, on the other, might not earn the same incomes as the jetsetters, but nevertheless must pay the same, lofty lift prices. Setting aside the welfare of locals, one can partly understand... Read More

The Neoliberal Critique of Trump’s Tariffs Finds Little Support in Economics or Among Voters

By Hal Singer
December 13, 2024
Image: Free trade deals caused many U.S. factories to close, sending jobs oversees and voters away from the Democratic Party. (Image: Getty)
The election results present a puzzle of sorts. On the one hand, voters expressed deep resentment towards inflation, under the belief that Biden contributed to rising prices, failed to address them, or both. On the other hand, Trump’s signature economic policy is tariffs—on imports from Mexico to Canada and now Israel—which most economists believe will... Read More

In-House Counsel Starter Pack: Boilerplate Antitrust Affirmative Defenses

By Laurel Kilgour
November 22, 2024
Image: For the coming merger wave, here’s our antitrust affirmative defense starter pack.
Many Americans are still in shock because our worst fears just came true: European regulators fined an American Big Tech firm a whopping one half of one percent of its annual revenue for violating some kind of “law.” To add insult to injury, radical American enforcers slipped loose from the adult supervision of the defense... Read More

The Loper-Bright Trap for the FTC

By Darren Bush
November 6, 2024
Image: Judicial power has contorted progressive law to support powerful business interests. The Court stands ready to do so again. Credit: Fred Schilling
“When the best reading of a statute is that it delegatesdiscretionary authority to an agency, the role of the reviewing court under the APA is, as always, to independently interpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress subject to constitutional limits.” –SCOTUS, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The quote above raises a tension between consideration of what Congress... Read More

The Federal Reserve Isn’t Responsible for the Soft Landing—Though to Understand Why, We Need More Than Econ 101

By Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
November 5, 2024
Image: Many have credited the Federal Reserve with achieving the once-mythical soft landing.
After years of inflation-driven concerns over the state of the economy, it seems that the mythical soft landing has been achieved; things aren’t perfect but inflation is down without the United States hitting a recession. The labor market has weakened some in recent months, but is still largely okay and the Federal Reserve has started... Read More

A New CFPB Rule Could Spark Competition in the Banking Industry

By Hal Singer
October 27, 2024
Image: JP Morgan’s Jaime Dimon is the Chairman of BPI, a bank trade association that sued the CFPB. Photo Credit: Al Drago for The New York Times
It’s always better to be a monopolist. “Ruinous competition” is a drag on a company’s profits, particularly when slothful incumbents are forced to compete on the merits. In the case of banks, competition on the merits means increasing rates on deposits for customers with sizeable savings or decreasing overdraft fees for customers with limited funds.... Read More

The Elephant in the Room in Google’s Antitrust Trials

By Emily Peterson-Cassin
October 20, 2024
Image: YouTube has been recognized as “the world’s second-largest search engine,” handling an estimated 3 billion searches per month.
As Google faces aggressive scrutiny from the Department of Justice—with the search trial moving to the remedies phase and the ad tech trial moving to closing arguments—there’s an elephant in the room that many antitrust watchers are failing to see: YouTube.  With the platform’s presence on our phones, the part it plays in our online... Read More

But What … If We Could! How Rob Lowe’s Character on The Grinder Explains the Stories Economists Teach Today

By David Berri
October 14, 2024
Each semester at universities around the world, students in introductory economic classes are generally told the same stories. Perhaps to the surprise of some students who have met human beings, economists teach their classes that human beings are rational creatures who primarily seek to maximize their own utility in making choices. These students are also... Read More

Revisiting Legal Standards for the Exchange of Confidential Business Information

By Peter Carstensen
October 12, 2024
Image: The DOJ sued RealPage for its information collection, processing, and rent recommendations to landlords. Photo by Sipa USA via AP Images.
In February 2023, Doha Mekki, the Principal Deputy AAG for Antitrust announced the withdrawal of the FTC-DOJ guidelines on information exchange. It had become painfully apparent that oligopolists had found exchanges of confidential business information to be an effective means of restraining competition without entering into overt conspiracies.  In December of that year, we published... Read More

When Market Forces Can’t Be Counted on to Protect Skiers

By Hal Singer
January 10, 2025
Image: Long lines form at Park City amid a ski patrol strike on Dec. 29, 2024. (Mariah Maynes/KSL NewsRadio)
Skiers are an admittedly unsympathetic crowd. At least the jetsetters who fly around the country chasing the toniest resorts like Park City.  Local skiers, on the other, might not earn the same incomes as the jetsetters, but nevertheless must pay the same, lofty lift prices. Setting aside the welfare of locals, one can partly understand... Read More

The Neoliberal Critique of Trump’s Tariffs Finds Little Support in Economics or Among Voters

By Hal Singer
December 13, 2024

The election results present a puzzle of sorts. On the one hand, voters expressed deep resentment towards inflation, under the belief that Biden contributed to rising prices, failed to address them, or both. On the other hand, Trump’s signature economic policy is tariffs—on imports from Mexico to Canada and now Israel—which most economists believe will... Read More

Image: Free trade deals caused many U.S. factories to close, sending jobs oversees and voters away from the Democratic Party. (Image: Getty)

In-House Counsel Starter Pack: Boilerplate Antitrust Affirmative Defenses

By Laurel Kilgour
November 22, 2024

Many Americans are still in shock because our worst fears just came true: European regulators fined an American Big Tech firm a whopping one half of one percent of its annual revenue for violating some kind of “law.” To add insult to injury, radical American enforcers slipped loose from the adult supervision of the defense... Read More

Image: For the coming merger wave, here’s our antitrust affirmative defense starter pack.

The Loper-Bright Trap for the FTC

By Darren Bush
November 6, 2024

“When the best reading of a statute is that it delegatesdiscretionary authority to an agency, the role of the reviewing court under the APA is, as always, to independently interpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress subject to constitutional limits.” –SCOTUS, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The quote above raises a tension between consideration of what Congress... Read More

Image: Judicial power has contorted progressive law to support powerful business interests. The Court stands ready to do so again. Credit: Fred Schilling

The Federal Reserve Isn’t Responsible for the Soft Landing—Though to Understand Why, We Need More Than Econ 101

By Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
November 5, 2024

After years of inflation-driven concerns over the state of the economy, it seems that the mythical soft landing has been achieved; things aren’t perfect but inflation is down without the United States hitting a recession. The labor market has weakened some in recent months, but is still largely okay and the Federal Reserve has started... Read More

Image: Many have credited the Federal Reserve with achieving the once-mythical soft landing.

A New CFPB Rule Could Spark Competition in the Banking Industry

By Hal Singer
October 27, 2024

It’s always better to be a monopolist. “Ruinous competition” is a drag on a company’s profits, particularly when slothful incumbents are forced to compete on the merits. In the case of banks, competition on the merits means increasing rates on deposits for customers with sizeable savings or decreasing overdraft fees for customers with limited funds.... Read More

Image: JP Morgan’s Jaime Dimon is the Chairman of BPI, a bank trade association that sued the CFPB. Photo Credit: Al Drago for The New York Times

The Elephant in the Room in Google’s Antitrust Trials

By Emily Peterson-Cassin
October 20, 2024

As Google faces aggressive scrutiny from the Department of Justice—with the search trial moving to the remedies phase and the ad tech trial moving to closing arguments—there’s an elephant in the room that many antitrust watchers are failing to see: YouTube.  With the platform’s presence on our phones, the part it plays in our online... Read More

Image: YouTube has been recognized as “the world’s second-largest search engine,” handling an estimated 3 billion searches per month.

But What … If We Could! How Rob Lowe’s Character on The Grinder Explains the Stories Economists Teach Today

By David Berri
October 14, 2024

Each semester at universities around the world, students in introductory economic classes are generally told the same stories. Perhaps to the surprise of some students who have met human beings, economists teach their classes that human beings are rational creatures who primarily seek to maximize their own utility in making choices. These students are also... Read More

Revisiting Legal Standards for the Exchange of Confidential Business Information

By Peter Carstensen
October 12, 2024

In February 2023, Doha Mekki, the Principal Deputy AAG for Antitrust announced the withdrawal of the FTC-DOJ guidelines on information exchange. It had become painfully apparent that oligopolists had found exchanges of confidential business information to be an effective means of restraining competition without entering into overt conspiracies.  In December of that year, we published... Read More

Image: The DOJ sued RealPage for its information collection, processing, and rent recommendations to landlords. Photo by Sipa USA via AP Images.

View All Articles

Subscribe now to get email updates about The Sling

Latest Slingshot

Follow us on Twitter
@TheSlingUtah

Subscribe to our RSS feed

© 2025 The Sling