http://www.antitrustreview.com/archives/333 News and commentary about antitrust, economics, technology, policy Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:59:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 http://www.antitrustreview.com/archives/333#comment-746 TRUTH ON THE MARKET » SCOTUS (Almost) Nails Another One … Thu, 02 Mar 2006 06:14:24 +0000 http://www.antitrustreview.com/archives/333#comment-746 <p>[...] There is no question that the court got this one right. But the opinion does raise some interesting questions. Dan Crane (who also thinks the decision was correct) raises some of them, accompanied by his reactions to the opinion, at Antitrust Review that are very worth checking out. For instance, Dan opines that the decision marks the end of the “per se” rule for tying — which as Dan points out — was not really per se analysis. One of the biggest questions for antitrust is how it will regulate practices that facilitate price discrimination. Bundling or tying products, among other pro-competitive justifications, may facilitate price discrimination by metering demand. I have talked about my skepticism regarding the potential for anticompetitive effects arising out of price discrimination before. While a guest at Ideoblog I wrote that: “[T]he $64,000 antitrust question is about neither leverage theory nor distribution costs, but how antitrust law will treat practices that increase firm profits by linking a complementary good to the tying good, i.e. metering the intensity of demand.” [...]</p> […] There is no question that the court got this one right. But the opinion does raise some interesting questions. Dan Crane (who also thinks the decision was correct) raises some of them, accompanied by his reactions to the opinion, at Antitrust Review that are very worth checking out. For instance, Dan opines that the decision marks the end of the “per se” rule for tying — which as Dan points out — was not really per se analysis. One of the biggest questions for antitrust is how it will regulate practices that facilitate price discrimination. Bundling or tying products, among other pro-competitive justifications, may facilitate price discrimination by metering demand. I have talked about my skepticism regarding the potential for anticompetitive effects arising out of price discrimination before. While a guest at Ideoblog I wrote that: “[T]he $64,000 antitrust question is about neither leverage theory nor distribution costs, but how antitrust law will treat practices that increase firm profits by linking a complementary good to the tying good, i.e. metering the intensity of demand.” […]

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