Walter Beckert
Walter Beckert received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He is an Associate Professor of Economics at Birkbeck, University of London, and a Research Associate at the Institute of Fiscal Studies. He has advised the Competition and Markets Authority, the OECD Competition Division, the Hong Kong Consumer Council, and various UK sector regulators. He conducts research in econometrics and empirical industrial organization, and his research is published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Review of Economic Studies, the Review of Industrial Organization, Econometric Theory, and others. His work examines: choice situations with strategically pre-selected choice sets, with particular applications in healthcare; industry behavior, including vertical relations, in oligopolistic product markets, with differentiated products; and intrinsic market uncertainty, arising from stochastic demand as a consequence of incomplete information about consumers’ valuations or preferences. He is a co-editor of The Manchester School, and has been considered "one of the world’s leading competition economists" by Who’s Who Legal (since 2016).
Antitrust and Competition
Fair Treatment of Consumers at Any Price?
Many scholars and policymakers have suggested regulating firms’ ability to price discriminate between consumers when they operate in a market prone to...
Latest news
Antitrust and Competition
The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Threatens Smaller Upstream Suppliers
Much of the conversation of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger has focused on the risks to consumers. However, the merger also poses serious implications for the grocers’ upstream suppliers, particularly smaller regional firms.
Regulation
Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?
Due to a change in how the FDIC resolves failed banks, uninsured deposits have become de facto insured. Not only is this dangerous for risk in the banking system, it is not what Congress intends the FDIC to do, writes Michael Ohlrogge.
Antitrust and Competition
Merger Law Reaches Acquirer Incentives and Private Equity Strategies
Steven C. Salop argues that Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers in which the acquiring firm’s unilateral incentives and business strategy are likely to lessen market competition.
Antitrust and Competition
Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists
Former special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy Tim Wu responds to the November 27 letter signed by former chief economists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division calling for a separation of the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines.
Book Reviews
Can the Public Moderate Social Media?
ProMarket student editor Surya Gowda reviews the arguments made by Paul Gowder in his new book, The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms.
Income Inequality
Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy
In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?
Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.
