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.

Antitrust and Competition

The White House Acknowledges: The U.S. Has a Concentration Problem; President Obama Launches New Pro-Competition Initiative

President Barack Obama issues an executive order that calls on federal government agencies to promote competition within uncompetitive markets. President Barack Obama launched a broad new...

Media

Study: Journalists’ Fear of Appearing Biased Benefits Special Interests

New study that looks into the media coverage of climate change finds that special interest groups often take advantage of journalists’ desire to present...

Regulatory Capture

“It’s Difficult to Produce Good Policy in Thin Political Markets”

Harvard Business School’s Karthik Ramanna, author of Political Standards, outlines the potential harms of thin political markets and offers ways to mitigate capture. “It’s difficult...

ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm

Is There a Crisis in the Economic Theory of the Firm? Participants at Harvard Business School Conference Agree: Firms Try to Change the Rules...

A novel conference at Harvard Business School brought together top scholars in order to answer the question: Is Milton Friedman’s dictum that firms that...

Antitrust and Competition

“What We Have is Capture of the Regulators’ Minds, A Much More Sophisticated Form of Capture Than Putting Money in Their Pockets”

Barry C. Lynn, author and director of New America’s Open Markets program, explains how every major industry and marketplace in America came to be controlled...

ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm

“The United States Has Lost the Will and Ability to Prosecute Top Corporate Executives”

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger speaks about executive impunity and the key to justice in America. In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a scathing indictment...

Media

The True Price of Media Capture: “We’ll Be Living in a State of Perpetual Shock and Amazement”

Journalist and media critic Dean Starkman, author of The Watchdog That Didn't Bark, speaks about capture in business media and explains how journalists missed the...

Regulatory Capture

“There Is Regulatory Capture, But It Is By No Means Complete”

Kenneth J. Arrow, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, reflects on the benefits of a single payer health care system,...

Rent seeking

The True Price of Reduced Competition in Health Care: Hospital Monopolies Drastically Drive Up Prices

New study reveals the potential damage of the merger frenzy that has accelerated in recent years. Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law,...

Regulatory Capture

"Capture is Everywhere – It Happens at the Highest Levels of Our Democracy"

Armed with research on drug patents and a spate of internal emails from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, hedge fund manager Kyle...

1...11 1213Page 13 of 13

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.

View All

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

About Us

Categories