The governments case suggests that its exclusive deals with Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine on their browsers “allowed Google to maintain its monopoly power [in "general search"] in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”
However, the government's brief also suggests that Google's scale is very important, which implies that its scale economies--not its exclusive deals--that maintain Google’s dominant share.
Around the time of the first Earth Day (1970), Environmentalists were making dire predictions (via Mark Perry):
Combined with the erroneous reverse-causality nature of McKinsey’s tests, our inability to quasi-replicate their results suggests that ... they should not be relied on to support the view that US publicly traded firms can expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial/ethnic diversity of their executives.
Making the pie bigger ("the growth agenda") means we are not fighting over a fixed pie ("zero sum fallacy"), and it guides decision making, "does this policy increase the size of the pie?"
MarginalRevolution points to a Jason Furman graph showing that a 0.5% growth rate difference between the US and Argentina over the last 120 years has lead to a per capita income in the US that is over three times as large as Argentina's [note exponential scale]
NYT (12/23):
As rising inflation threatens his presidency, President Biden is turning to the federal government’s antitrust authorities to try to tame red-hot price increases that his administration believes are partly driven by a lack of corporate competition.On Christmas 2021, the headline in the NY Times business section was "As Prices Rise, Biden Turns to Antitrust Enforcers." Larry Summers immediately bashed the idea:
“The emerging claim that antitrust can combat inflation reflects ‘science denial,’ ” tweeted Harvard economist Lawrence Summers, a senior official in the Obama and Clinton administrations. “There are many areas like transitory inflation where serious economists differ. Antitrust as an anti-inflation strategy is not one of them.”In the late 1970's, at Stanford, I heard John Kenneth Galbraith, the economist in charge of price controls during WWII, call the idea "the last refuge of a vacant liberal mind." The turn of phrase was so elegant and shocking--at the time, I was a liberal--that it has stayed with me.
Amazon had been concerned with Walmart's and Target's growing presence as online marketplaces. Now Sebastian Herrera at the WSJ reports that their focus has shifted to Temu and Shein. So far, Amazon's US market share is larger than the other four combined. But these newcomers (to the US) believe that this could change. Temu's number of active users is approaching Amazon's, but Temu's revenue per user is much lower.
It is interesting how all of these firms are staking out differentiated products strategies. Walmart and Target leverage their brick & mortar stores, Shein focuses on fast fashion, Temu on deep discounts, while Amazon's logistics muscle allows it a delivery speed advantage.
Since November 2023, there have been 133 reported incidents of shipping attacks by Houthi militia in Yemen, including 14 vessels struck by missiles or drones and 18 vessels hijacked by Somali pirates. This has caused some ships to bypass the Suez Canal in favor of the Cape of Good Hope. But Paul Berger at the WSJ reports on another alternative for some shippers. Some cargo has been diverted to air freight leading to huge increases in rates.
On lanes linking the Middle East and South Asia to Europe, average spot rates rose 46% from February to March to $2.82 per kilogram, a 71% increase from last year. The average global spot rate to ship cargo by air in March rose 7% from a month earlier to $2.43 per kilogram, according to Xeneta.
A WSJ article by Alexandra Bruell reports that three years ago the Atlantic magazine ran a $20 million deficit which led to layoffs. A new boss, Nick Thompson, was tasked with turning this around. Along with editorial changes toward longer investigative pieces rather than breaking news, the Atlantic raised subscription prices 50%. How did he know to do this?
Thompson’s team ran experiments to determine the best way to charge more without alienating new readers. It is offering fewer stories free and no longer discounting subscriptions. Last year, it raised prices for annual subscriptions to $80 from $60 for digital and to $90 from $70 for both print and digital.
Revenue was up 10% last year to close to $100 million and the magazine is now profitable.
