Two panel opinions of the Seventh Circuit reached opposite conclusions in two massive antitrust cases during the past year, even though they purported to apply the same, now-infamous Twombly-Iqbal pleading standard, and even though the complaints in the two cases were very similar and the...

In this paper, we present a straightforward economic model that explains the incentives to manipulate nodal energy prices in a “Day 2” RTO market. The model distinguishes between legitimate market participation that increases overall market efficiency and manipulative behavior that distorts...

In this paper, we describe the development and current status of anti-manipulation rules as they apply to wholesale electricity and natural gas markets in the United States and the European Union, including the institutions that are responsible for overseeing these rules. We then compare and...

A recent phenomenon in competition policy is the acquisition of a private firm by an enterprise that is either wholly owned by government or in the midst of privatization. Such an acquisition poses the question of how public ownership may alter the incentives of a firm to engage in...

A tying arrangement is a seller’s requirement that a customer may purchase its “tying” product only by taking its “tied” product. In a variable proportion tie the purchaser can vary the amount of the tied product. For example, a customer might purchase a single printer, but either a...

Local telephone companies have long been regulated as natural monopolies. However, technological innovation and the prospect of falling regulatory barriers to entry now expose some portions of the local exchange to competition from cable television systems, wireless telephony, and rival wireline...

Through the end of the twentieth century, the most critical regulatory issue facing electric utilities was stranded costs, which can be defined as those costs that the utilities were permitted to recover through their rates but whose recovery may have been impeded or prevented by the advent of...

The paper addresses the question of pricing access to the network facilities of an incumbent firm after deregulation. Network access pricing continues to be regulated in such industries as telecommunications, railroads, electric power and natural gas. We emphasize that access prices should be...

Mergers that substantially lessen competition are illegal, but mergers that lower costs enough benefit society, so a merger of competing firms may be good for society if it generates enough efficiencies. Nonetheless, it is widely believed that the Supreme Court has not yet accepted an...