Asher Schechter

ProMarket's former deputy managing editor. As a journalist, he has mostly covered issues related to the intersection between politics and the economy, such as antitrust, corruption, lobbying and social movements. Prior to joining the Stigler center, he worked for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz-TheMarker, where he was a senior features writer and still writes as a political columnist. He is the author of Rothschild: The Story of a Protest Movement (2012, Hakibbutz Hameuhad-Sifriat Poalim Publishing Group), a nonfiction book covering Israel’s social protests of 2011, and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper (New York Hub). He previously hosted The Cost of Doing Business, a twice-weekly podcast about business and economics in Israel. You can follow him on Twitter at @asherschechter.

Academic Capture

“Uber Has Higher Prices and Worse Service Than the Taxi Industry Had Ten Years Ago”

Following the Uber Files leaks, transportation expert Hubert Horan explains why Uber is “hopelessly uneconomic” and how its engagement with policymakers and...

Academic Capture

Relationships With Academics at the Center of the Uber Files Revelations

The Guardian’s exposé on Uber’s strategy of engaging with top academic researchers to produce corporate-friendly research calls to mind concerns regarding academic...

Antitrust and Competition

Can Companies Use Climate Change as an Excuse to Obtain More Market Power? A ProMarket Interview

In an interview with ProMarket, Jürgen Kühling, the chair of Germany’s Monopolies Commission, discusses the relationship between climate change and antitrust, what...

Antitrust and Competition

DOJ Antitrust Head Jonathan Kanter: “We Are Making It Very Clear: We’re Going to Hold Individuals Accountable”

In an interview with ProMarket, assistant attorney general Jonathan Kanter, head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, explains why he believes...

Antitrust and Competition

Rep. Ken Buck on the Need for Antitrust Reform: “Big Corporate America Scares People”

In an interview with ProMarket, Republican congressman Ken Buck explains why antitrust enforcement is so crucial to the US economy and American democracy,...

News

Gabriel Zucman: “I’m a Bit Skeptical That Freezing the Assets of a Few Dozen Oligarchs Can Be Highly Effective”

60 percent of the wealth of Russia’s richest 0.01 percent are held offshore. UC Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman explains why blanket sanctions, of...

Antitrust and Competition

The Best Political Economy Books of 2021

A scholarly examination of market’s power toll on American workers, the collected works of a pioneering economic thinker, an ambitious narrative of...

Antitrust and Competition

“This Isn’t the Kind of Journalism That Serves Democracy Best”: How Place and Privilege Came to Define American News

In an interview with ProMarket, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor Nikki Usher discusses how news in the US came to be...

Income Inequality

How Insufficient Enforcement Led to Prevalent Tax Evasion and Contributed to American Inequality

The prevalence of tax evasion among the top 1 percent of the income distribution is much worse than previously thought, a study...

Antitrust and Competition

The Profit Paradox: “What’s Good for Firms Is Not Necessarily Good for the Workers”

In an interview with ProMarket, Jan Eeckhout discusses his new book The Profit Paradox and explains how market power brings down wages,...

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Latest news

Antitrust and Competition

Revising Guideline 6 With Evidence To Establish a Structural Inference for Input Foreclosure

Steven Salop

Vertical merger law lacks the structural presumption of horizontal merger law, which shifts the burden from the government to the merging parties to provide evidence that a merger will not produce anticompetitive effects when it is known that the merger will substantially increase market concentration. To improve Guideline 6 of the draft Merger Guidelines concerning vertical foreclosure, Steven Salop develops a three-factor criteria with which the government antitrust agencies can show an analogous structural “inference” that shifts the burden of evidence to the merging parties.

Antitrust and Competition

How US Antitrust Enforcement Against Xerox Promoted Innovation by Japanese Competitors

Robin Mamrak

Xerox invented modern copier technology and was so successful that its brand name became a verb. In 1972, U.S. antitrust authorities charged Xerox with monopolization and eventually ordered the licensing of all its copier-related patents. As new research by Robin Mamrak shows, this antitrust intervention promoted subsequent innovation in the copier industry, but only among Japanese competitors. Nevertheless, their innovations benefited U.S. consumers.

Antitrust and Competition

Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation

John Kwoka

The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.

Economic History

How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism

Cyril Hédoin, Alexandre Chirat

In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.

Antitrust and Competition

The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect

Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, Anna Toldrà-Simats

In a new paper, Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Anna Toldrà-Simats study how large institutional investors impact firm innovation. The authors find that large institutional investors encourage internal research and development but discourage firm acquisitions that would add patents and knowledge to their firms’ portfolios, hampering overall innovation.

Antitrust and Competition

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

Joshua Gray, Cristian Santesteban

Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.

Commentary

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

David Ennis

Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.

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Asher Schechter

Latest news

Revising Guideline 6 With Evidence To Establish a Structural Inference for Input Foreclosure

How US Antitrust Enforcement Against Xerox Promoted Innovation by Japanese Competitors

Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation

How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism

The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect

The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses

We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry

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