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Antitrust Basics: Rule of Reason Standard vs. Consumer Welfare Standard
Regulators have used two different standards to judge antitrust cases over the last century or so: the “rules of reason” standard and the “consumer welfare”…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
It was a four-day week for the federal government as the nation celebrated Independence Day. Meanwhile, agencies published new regulations ranging from the Paper and…
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Antitrust Basics: Misleading Herfindahl-Hirschman Index
Market concentration is the most common reason for antitrust intervention. If a company has too large a market share, it can abuse that market power…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The 2019 Federal Register broke 30,000 pages last week, the Democratic presidential candidates had their first debates, and the U.S. and Chinese governments prepared for…
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Antitrust Basics: Relevant Market Fallacy
If a firm is charged with having market power, the question naturally arises: in which market? Does Facebook have a monopoly over social networking, especially…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Wednesday, the day before the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s 35th anniversary gala dinner, saw no new final regulations published in the Federal Register. This may be…
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Introducing Antitrust Basics
Often, a drips-and-drabs approach to learning an issue over a period of time is as effective as a single intense cram session. To that end,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week, a Canadian team won the NBA championship for the first time, while an American team won the Stanley Cup. This week brings us…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While the administration is so far keeping to its one-in, two-out policy for proposed rules, new trade and antitrust policies are likely to increase net…
The Washington Times
Kamala Harris Outlines Plan To Penalize Companies That Fail To Close Gender ‘Pay Gaps’
The Washington Times cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on a legislative plan to penalize companies for gender pay disparties. Ryan Young, a senior…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump threatened a new tariff on all Mexican goods, potentially scuttling the NAFTA/USMCA agreement. My colleague Wayne Crews went through the new Spring 2019…
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Addressing the Gender Pay Gap: Culture, Not Legislation
Gender discrimination is a complex problem with a complex solution.
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Trump Threatens up to 25 Percent Tariff on Mexican Goods, Jeopardizes NAFTA/USMCA
Things have been moving quickly on President Trump’s top legislative priority, the NAFTA/USMCA trade agreement. The key was rescinding steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada…
Conservative Commandos Radio Show
“Income Inequality” Needs a Conservative Solution?? Bernie Sanders is Crazy to Say Criminals Should Be Allowed to Vote!! Case against the Use of Antitrust Law!!
Senior Fellow Ryan Young joined Conservative Commandos Radio Show to discuss the case against antitrust law. Ryan Young, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The number of new final regulations this year topped 1,000 last Tuesday, and President Trump and Congress entered Memorial Day weekend at odds on issues…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Game of Thrones finale aired last night, though the show’s less-plausible Washington spinoff appears set to continue indefinitely, and with a rather larger budget.
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Trump Mostly Removes Steel, Aluminum Tariffs against Mexico, Canada: Barriers Still Higher than in 2017
The Trump administration is mostly lifting its steel aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, effective 48 hours from today’s announcement. But metal tariffs will remain higher…
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Alice Rivlin, 1931-2019
Some economists do more than teach classes and write books. Alice Rivlin, who passed away this week, was proof. She was the first director of…
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Boeing Pushes 100 Percent Tariffs on Airbus
Boeing, fresh off a victory in restoring the Export-Import Bank’s full lending authority, is floating the idea of a 100 percent tariff on Airbus aircraft…
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Trade War State of Play: China, USMCA
If President Trump’s trade war has a single takeaway, it is this: Raising tariffs is an ineffective bargaining strategy. When the U.S. raises its tariffs,…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for breaking up the company; CEI’s Iain Murray and Kent Lassman explain why that’s a bad idea. CEI also released…
Blog
Re-Prioritizing Regulatory Reform
The 2019 edition of Wayne Crews’ Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State is out now.
National Review
President Trump Should Rediscover Regulatory Reform
President Trump, who made regulatory reform a priority early in his term, claims to have reduced federal regulatory burdens by $23 billion in fiscal year…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Not one, but two potential Federal Reserve Board nominees withdrew from consideration last week, and economic growth and unemployment remained in excellent health. Meanwhile, with…
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Trump Threatens New China Tariff with May 10th Deadline
On Sunday, President Trump announced via Twitter that if he does not approve of the results of this week’s U.S.-China trade talks, he will enact…
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Ex-Im Bank Revival?
Next week the Senate is expected to vote on new board members for the Export-Import Bank, which gives favorable financing terms to foreign governments and…
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Republican Study Committee Releases 2020 Budget Proposal
Congress is supposed to pass an annual spending budget, though it rarely gets around to it. Instead, the government is usually funded through a mashup…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While Washington’s “This Town” types geared up for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the rest of the country flocked to movie theaters for a much…
The Washington Examiner
Consumer Doom: Both Parties are Pushing Antitrust Rules as a 2020 Issue
After a two-decade lull following the Microsoft case, big antitrust enforcement cases are back in vogue. Both political parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020…
Blog
Antitrust Regulation Turning into Campaign Issue
Both parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020 campaign issue. Neither President Trump nor most of the Democratic candidates are proposing improvements. Over at the…
Washington Examiner
Consumer doom: Both parties are pushing antitrust rules as a 2020 issue
After a two-decade lull following the Microsoft case, big antitrust enforcement cases are back in vogue. Both political parties are making antitrust regulation a 2020…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and sustained heavy damage. The rebuilding will likely take years, though people began politicizing it almost instantly.
Blog
Blocking the T-Mobile-Sprint Merger: Competition, Rent-Seeking, and Uncertainty
Nationwide 5G networks are coming. They will expand possibilities for everything from smartphone applications to GPS to streaming video, and will enable new technologies that…
News Release
DOJ Wrong to Intervene in Merger Between Sprint and T-Mobile
Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that antitrust enforcement staff at the Department of Justice have told T-Mobile and Sprint the proposed merger between the…
Blog
New Study: The Case against Antitrust Law
Antitrust regulation is a complex, multifaceted issue. It brings together insights from law, economics, political science, history, philosophy, and other disciplines. Right now both political…
News Release
CEI Makes the Case against the Use of Antitrust Law
The Competitive Enterprise Institute today released a report making the case that government use of antitrust law to break up big companies has a chilling…
Study
The Case against Antitrust Law
Politicians and pundits across the ideological spectrum often call for greater competition in the marketplace. While their favored means vary widely, the view that current…
The Washington Examiner
Mcdonald’s Says It Won’t Lobby on Minimum Wage
The Washington Examiner cited Senior Fellow Ryan Young on McDonald’s and minimum wage. “It’s just trying to get good PR,” Ryan Young, senior…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
In a remarkable human achievement, scientists took the first-ever image of a black hole. The effort took eight telescopes on five continents, five petabytes of…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The news cycle was more sizzle than steak last week. President Trump threatened to shut down the southern border and backed off almost immediately, so…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Pundits spent the week engaging in mortal combat over the Mueller Report, which none of them have read, and spring officially sprung with baseball’s opening…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
As tempers flared over how many “chuggas” to say before “choo-choo,” the 2019 Federal Register topped the 10,000-page mark last week and the number of…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
President Trump has declared passing the new NAFTA/USMCA as his top legislative priority, but congressional ratification will not be automatic. Mexico and Canada are also…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Last week was low-drama by recent standards, but still had some important developments. The U.S. trade deficit set a record for the second year in…
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What Do Economists Think about the Minimum Wage?
The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said that if you laid all the world’s economists end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. President…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The Michael Cohen hearing shenanigans gobbled up the headlines, but actual substantive news happened regarding talks with China and North Korea—in particular, a planned tariff…
Citation
Delaying Further China Tariffs “Nice” but Fails to Undo Harm “Being Done Right Now”
In a notice put out this morning, the Trump Administration announced a delay in tariffs against China “until further notice.”…
Blog
This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
The federal government was on a four-day work week in honor of George Washington’s birthday, but agencies still found time to issue regulations ranging from…
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Say No to Trump’s Proposed Auto Tariffs
President Trump is mulling a tariff on automobiles. Joining a long list of people urging him against it is the Japanese auto industry. That opposition…
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This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Congress and President Trump passed a spending bill to avoid another shutdown, but President Trump’s national emergency declaration over a non-emergency provides a troubling precedent…