Economics at the FTC: Deceptive Claims,Market Definition,and Patent Assertion Entities

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed common carriage regulation—so-called Title II requirements—on previously unregulated broadband Internet service providers. The regime shift was premised on the FCC’s findings that such rules had demonstrably yielded economic gains. This paper evaluates the FCC’s empirical arguments and finds them uncompelling. Adjustments for inflation or general economic trends eliminate the effects cited by the FCC. Moreover, contrary to the Commission’s assessment, mobile services and broadband markets have shown notable growth in response to deregulatory events that reduce Title II requirements.     

Risk,uncertainty and the theory of planned behavior: A tourism example

The differential impacts risk and uncertainty have on travel decision-making were explored by examining the constructs' influence on the antecedents of intentions to visit Australia using the theory of planned behavior. Respondents were obtained from online consumer panels in South Korea, China and Japan. The South Korean and Chinese samples were general population samples, while the sample from Japan was an international travelers' sample. The extended model fitted the data well, explaining between 21 and 44 percent of the variance in intentions. Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control significantly impacted on intentions in all country samples, whereas attitudes toward visiting Australia were only significant in Japan. Subjective norms influenced attitudes and perceived behavioral control in all country samples. Finally, perceived risk influenced attitudes toward visiting Australia in South Korea and Japan, while perceived uncertainty influenced attitudes toward visiting Australia in South Korea and China and perceived behavioral control in China and Japan.     

Export diversification: How much does the choice of the trading partner matter?

This paper studies how a country's export diversification varies across destination markets. It develops an extension of the Romalis (2004) model which yields two testable predictions. According to the first, exports between similarly endowed countries (“South–South” and “North–North”) are more diversified than exports between differently endowed countries (“South–North” and “North–South”). The second implication is that, for given countries' production patterns, low bilateral trade costs lead to greater export diversification. These predictions find empirical support in a panel of 102 trade partners and 4998 HS-6 industries over the period 1995–2007. Results show that similarities between trading partners in physical capital, land and human capital endowments per worker are associated with more diversified bilateral exports. Exports are also more diversified when bilateral trade costs are relatively low.     

A cosmopolitan return to nature: how combining aesthetization and moralization processes expresses distinction in food consumption

This article investigates how foodies' adoption of New Nordic Food enables them to combine aesthetic and moral cosmopolitanism ideals. It demonstrates that consumers integrate aesthetic and moral cosmopolitan discourses through two complementary processes: the re-aesthetization of nature and the re-moralization of the exotic. These processes combine in a cosmopolitan interest for one of the last unexplored foreign contexts: nature. The findings of this article contribute to existing research by showing that moral cosmopolitanism reflects a more individualized and less engaged form of consumption than ethical consumption. They illustrate how urban consumers perform distinction in contexts where nature is the most exotic unexplored context, highlighting further the reterritorialization of global cosmopolitan consumption, where food trends can only be consumed authentically in their context of origin. Finally, this article shows how moral cosmopolitanism can support consumers who acknowledge the need for ethical consumption yet struggle with its adoption.     

Calm After the Storms: Income Distribution and Welfare in Chile, 1987-94

After rising during most—but not all—of the 1960–85period, inequality in Chile seems to have stabilized since around1987. Following the stormy period of economic and politicalreforms of the 1970s and 1980s, no statistically significantLorenz dominance results could be detected since 1987. Scalarmeasures of inequality confirm this picture of stability, butsuggest a slight change in the shape of the density function,with some compression at the bottom being "compensated for"by a stretching at the top. As inequality remained broadly stable,sustained economic growth led to substantial welfare improvementsand poverty reduction, according to a range of measures andwith respect to three different poverty lines. Poverty mixedstochastic dominance tests confirm this result. All of thesefindings are robust to different choices of equivalence scales.     

Do CEOs in Mergers Trade Power for Premium? Evidence from "Mergers of Equals"

I analyze chief executive officer (CEO) incentives to negotiateshared control in the postmerger governance of the survivingfirm. In order to do this, I study abnormal returns in a sampleof "mergers of equals" (MOEs) transactions in which the twofirms are approximately equal in postmerger board representation.These transactions are friendly mergers generally characterizedby premerger negotiations that result in both greater sharedcontrol (board and management) and more equal sharing of mergergains between the two firms. On average, the value created measuredby combined event returns is no different between MOEs and amatched sample of transactions. However, target shareholderscapture less of the gains measured by event returns in transactionswith shared governance. Moreover, target shareholders' shareof the gains is systematically related to variables representingpostmerger control rights, and shared governance is more likelyin transactions in which CEOs face greater incentives for control.The evidence suggests that CEOs trade power for premium by negotiatingshared control in the merged firm in exchange for lower shareholderpremiums.     

Confronting the science/value split: notes on feminist economics, institutionalism, pragmatism and process thought

What changes must economics undergo, if it is to become a moreadequate discipline, furthering of survival and flourishing?This essay argues that a break must be made from contemporarymainstream economics at the level of ontology (i.e., about thenature of reality). Drawing on neglected traditions of pragmatistphilosophy and process metaphysics, some elements of ‘old’institutionalist economics, and late-twentieth century naturalscience, it demonstrates that ample argument exists for a viewof the world as open, evolving and permeated with value. Furthermore,feminist scholarship offers an explanation for why such a worldviewfaces an uphill battle for acceptance.