Beyond antitrust populism: Towards robust antitrust

The populist use of competition policies is on the rise again, associated with the growth of big-tech companies in the era of digital platforms. This article sees antitrust populism as a re-emerging force in the United States and Europe via greater politicisation of competition law enforcement. It addresses the basic tenets of antitrust populism in order to expose the fundamental problems that populist use of competition law entails. I argue for a rethink of antitrust policy on the intellectual foundations laid down by what Mark Pennington describes as ‘robust political economy’. We need greater regulatory humility and antitrust enforcement which takes both innovation and welfare seriously.     

Large,entrepreneurship and regional development policy: ‘growth poles’ in the Mezzogiorno over 40 years

Large firms are often perceived by economists and policy-makers as ‘growth poles’ to promote development in backward regions. The idea behind the ‘growth poles’ is that large firms may have a leverage effect on the birth and growth of small and medium sized firms. Regional policy in Italy, particularly in the Mezzogiorno, has subsidized large external plants since the 1950s. A new wave of planning agreements in the 1990s is going to redesign and to strengthen this policy orientation. This paper offers empirical data on plant location and growth at provincial level over 40 years. There is no evidence of overall long term growth impact of large acternal plants in the Mezzogiorno, while there are interesting variations by sectors. A theoretical interpretation of the impact of large firms on local entrepreneurial resources is offered, pointing to the negative effects of large firms on the supply of local entrepreneurship. Policy implications are discussed.     

In Praise of Expansionary Fiscal Contraction

Textbook orthodoxy maintains that increases in the cyclically adjusted budget balance (i.e. reductions in the deficit) withdraw demand from an economy. Those Keynesian economists who believe that fiscal policy is the most powerful single influence on changes in demand expect ‘fiscal contraction’ to be accompanied by below‐trend growth or even declines in output. This article, a response to Martin Wolf's 2013 Wincott Memorial Lecture, considers this Keynesian view. Using a database prepared by the International Monetary Fund, it shows that since the 1980s ‘expansionary fiscal contractions’ have been the norm and not the exception in the USA and the UK. Keynesian support for fiscal activism is unsupported by a large body of recent evidence.     

The ARCO decision: Inroads into the per se rule under Section 1 of the Sherman Act

In this study, the author analyzes the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision inAtlantic Richfield Company vs. USA Petroleum Company approving Atlantic Richfield’s maximum pricing plan improsed on its distributors (despite the Court’s recognition that theper se rule forbade such schemes). Theper se rule had been one of the last substantial measures of effective antitrust policy administered by enforcement authorities and the courts, perhaps even more fundamental than scrutiny of proposed mergers and predatory practices. That principle has been weakened by the ARCO decision. The author addresses some of the likely consequences of the ascendancy of the Chicago School and the NeoClassical theory generally in antitrust interpretation.     

Monetary policy in open economies: Practical perspectives for pragmatic central bankers

This paper reviews and interprets some of the key policy implications that flow from a class of DSGE models for optimal monetary policy in the open economy. The framework suggests that good macroeconomic outcomes in open economies are possible by focusing inflation targeting that is implemented by a Taylor type rule, a rule that in equilibrium is reflected in the exchange rate as an asset price. Optimal monetary policy will not be able deliver a stationary (‘stable’) nominal exchange rate – let alone a fixed exchange rate or one that remains inside a target zone – because, absent a commitment device, optimal monetary can’t deliver a stationary domestic price level. Another feature in the data for inflation targeting countries that is consistent with monetary policy via Taylor type rule is that it will tend push the nominal exchange rate in the opposite direction from PPP in response to an ‘inflation’ shock—the ‘bad news god news’ result of Clarida and Waldman (2008. Is Bad News about Inflation Good News for the Exchange Rate. In: John Campbell, (Ed.), Asset Prices and Monetary Policy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press), Clarida and Waldman (2014. Bad News About Inflation is Good News for the Nominal Exchange Rate Under Optimal Monetary Policy: DSGE Theory and a Decade of Empirical Evidence). This is so even though in the long run of these models the nominal exchange rate must in expectation obey PPP.     

The myths of the Chicago School

Reconstructions of ‘Chicago School’ sociology perpetuate certain myths about the nature and style of the sociology carried out at the University of Chicago. These views have been analysed and four elements have been identified. These are that Chicago sociology was reformist in orientation, atheoretical, ethnographic and influenced by the pragmatism of G.H. Mead. These elements of myth are scrutinised in terms of their genesis and substance.     

Rebalancing and Regional Economic Performance: Northern Ireland in A Nordic Mirror

Northern Ireland has been characterised as having an excessively large public sector. This characterisation has led some to explain poor regional economic performance in terms of ‘crowding out’. This diagnosis has been used to justify a policy of ‘rebalancing’ and the region copying its southern neighbour's lower rate of corporation tax. The experience of large public sectors in the Nordic economies seems however to suggest that higher public spending is not necessarily damaging. This argument is examined critically. Rodrik's comparative institutional analysis indicates that in the Nordics a large public sector was the result of building a successful tradable private sector rather than its cause. In terms of the possible ‘economic dividend’ from devolution we suggest that a Hayekian insight is better: no ‘silver bullets’ exist.     

Financial conditions and monetary policy in the US

We examine the FED’s monetary policy rule with financial stability considerations and under asymmetry. We use the National Financial Conditions Index constructed by the Chicago FED in order to test whether financial stability concerns enter monetary policy formulations in the US. We model nonlinearity in monetary policy by a Markov regime-switching model. The results show that the monetary policy implemented by the FED can be characterized as a two-state Markov process and financial instability significantly increases the likelihood of regime-switching from a “tranquil” to a “distressed” regime. Moreover, the likelihood of a switch in the FED’s monetary policy regime between tranquil and distressed seems to increase when a certain threshold level of the financial conditions index is reached. Finally, our results seem to be robust to alternative specifications of the reaction function and different forms of non-linearity.     

Employment equity policy frames in the literature: ‘good practice’ versus ‘bad idea’

Work organisations considering policies against racial or ethnic discrimination and for recognising diversity can find many different and often conflicting recommendations in the literature, in particular regarding the aim of proportional representation of different ethnic groups. To better understand this controversy, this paper rigorously examines three key theories from a frame-critical and business ethics perspective. It introduces a fundamental threefold conceptualisation of ‘employment equity policy’ (EEP) as a catch-all term for related concepts such as ‘affirmative action’, ‘equal opportunities policy’ and ‘diversity management’, distinguishing between three different organisational goals: equal treatment, equal results and individual recognition. The analysis suggests that different authors emphasise some ‘facts’ rather than others and strategically interpret the limited available empirical research to support their policy positions, mixing both classical and newer ethical reasoning. In the ‘good practice’ frame, human resource management practitioners are urged to take ‘positive action’, to monitor the ethnic composition of the workforce and to formulate target figures to increase the representation of discriminated groups. In the opposing ‘bad idea’ frame, organisations are seriously advised against EEPs with ‘hard’ numerical goals: these policies supposedly are unnecessary and ineffective and have negative unintended consequences. The article draws implications from these findings for future research and practice in the field of EEPs.     

Contingent Chicago: Restructuring the Spaces of Temporary Labor

Hiring‐halls, specializing in the placement of day‐laborers in temporary jobs, have in recent years been proliferating along major transport arteries in Chicago's low‐income neighborhoods. This article examines the phenomenon of low‐wage temporary work in Chicago from the perspective of the principal institutional actors in these highly ‘flexibilized’ or ‘contingent’ labor markets – the ‘temp’ agencies. Particular emphasis is placed on the labor‐market effects of temp‐agency strategies, both in respect to patterns of labor segmentation and in terms of the spatial (re)constitution of urban job markets. It is suggested that temp agencies are actively engaged in both the exploitation and facilitation of contingent labor‐market conditions. In this sense, they are assuming important new roles as privatized ‘labor‐market intermediaries’, with apparently deleterious effects for job security and social segregation in the lower reaches of urban labor markets. Their strategies can also be related to the social and geographic restructuring of these job markets, because the growth and polarization of temp employment has been associated with a ‘hardening’– and indeed ‘stretching’– of extant ethnic, gender and spatial inequalities. Des bureaux d'embauche, spécialisés dans le placement de journaliers sur des postes temporaires, ont récemment proliféré le long des grands axes de transport dans les quartiers défavorisés de Chicago. Cet article étudie le phénomène du travail temporaire à faible revenu dans cette ville, et ce, du point de vue des principaux acteurs institutionnels sur ces marchés du travail hautement ‘flexibilisés’ ou ‘aléatoires’: les agences de travail temporaire. Il insiste sur les conséquences des stratégies de ces agences pour le marché de l'emploi, à la fois au niveau des schémas de segmentation du travail et en termes de (re)constitution spatiale des marchés du travail urbains. Aussi peut‐on suggérer que ces agences sont activement impliquées dans l'exploitation et la facilitation des conditions aléatoires du marché du travail. En ce sens, elles jouent un rôle important et nouveau comme ‘intermédiaires du marché du travail’ privatisés, avec des effets apparemment néfastes pour la sécurité de l'emploi et la ségrégation sociale dans les circuits inférieurs des marchés urbains. Leurs stratégies peuvent aussi être liées à la restructuration sociale et géographique de ces marchés, la croissance et la polarisation de l'emploi temporaire ayant ètè associées à un ‘durcissement’, et assurément à une ‘extension’, des inégalités existantes au plan ethnique, spatial et des sexes.     

Platform economics and antitrust enforcement: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Although the economics of multisided platforms has developed important insights for antitrust policy, there are critical respects in which the body of academic knowledge falls short of providing useful advice to enforcement agencies and the courts. Indeed, there is a substantial risk that recent scholarship will be misapplied to the detriment of sound antitrust policy, as evidenced by the US Supreme Court's recent decision in American Express. In this note, I identify several areas in which economics research could potentially make significant contributions to the practical antitrust treatment of platforms.     

Racial Discrimination In Speculative Application: Evidence From the Uk's Top 100 Firms

Mike Noon, who is Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Cardiff Business School, examines the responses of the UK's top 100 firms when faced with speculative enquiries from two bogus ‘candidates’ belonging to different ethnic groups. He finds that, although both candidates were likely to reveive a reply, the ‘white’ candidate tended to receive a better quality reply; candidates were more likely to be treated the same by companies with statements of equal opportunity, but when discrimination occurred it also tended to favour the white candidate. His conclusions suggest what might be done to bridge the gap between policy and practice.     

Is entrepreneurship a virtue?

Entrepreneurship is rarely (if ever) discussed by virtue ethicists. And economists analysing entrepreneurship have rarely described it as a virtue. Entrepreneurship is indeed a virtue and the entrepreneur can be seen as the creative counterpart of Aristotle's ‘Magnificent Man’, the virtuous possessor of wealth. But entrepreneurship is also a virtue for anyone who is economically active. By reviewing analyses of entrepreneurship by economists such as Cantillon, Schumpeter, Knight, Baumol, Kirzner and Casson, particular features of entrepreneurial practice are identified from which characteristic virtues (and vices) are isolated and analysed. The characteristic features of the vicious Entrepreneur (or crooked businessman) are also described.     

Social inclusion,new regionalism and associational governance: the Queensland experience

In recent years there has been a resurgence of decentralized social governance concerned with the spatial dimensions of disadvantage. This article examines aspects of this resurgence in the Australian state of Queensland where, after the hasty birth of ‘place management’ in response to the rise of ‘Hansonism’, a plethora of ‘joined‐up’ policy initiatives were undertaken in relation to the regional dimensions of poverty. We propose that these trends reflect in part new ways of thinking about the spatial aspects of disadvantage which have emerged in recent years and which have the potential to take regional policy beyond the narrow confines imposed by neoliberal economic orthodoxy. These new ways of thinking have arisen in social policy through the reframing of disadvantage in terms of social exclusion and in regional economic policy through the influence of the so‐called ‘new regionalism’. The article shows how together these bodies of theory point us towards a new model of ‘associational governance’. The article reviews recent Queensland experience and indicates those features of ‘associational governance’ which have become characteristic of locality‐based social policy ideas in Queensland. ‘Joined‐up’ and regional policy aspirations of the Queensland State government have shown the influence of these new approaches. The political and policy sustainability of these trends, however, is uncertain. The lingering shadow of managerialism and neoliberal policy frameworks remains a significant barrier to the innovation and viability of these approaches. More directly, the inherent limits of the ‘local’ or ‘regional’ initiatives in the face of broader national and global factors will significantly constrain the capacity of associational governance systems to deliver positive democratic, social and economic outcomes. The article examines recent Queensland policy reforms in light of this complex set of factors and concludes by offering directions for future research and policy development. Ces dernières années ont vu réapparaître une gouvernance sociale décentralisée soucieuse des dimensions spatiales des cas défavorisés. Des aspects de cette ré‐émergence sont étudiés dans l'état australien du Queensland où, après la démarche précipitée vers un ‘management de lieu’ en réaction à la montée de ‘l'hansonisme’, une multitude d'initiatives politiques ‘combinées’ ont été entreprises à l'égard des dimensions régionales de la pauvreté. Ces tendances reflètent en partie de nouveaux modes de pensée sur les aspects spatiaux des cas défavorisés. Apparus depuis peu, ces courants sont susceptibles de sortir la politique régionale des limites étroites qu'impose l'orthodoxie économique néolibérale. De plus, ils ont surgi dans la politique des régions grâce au recadrage de la pauvreté en termes d'exclusion sociale, et dans la politique économique régionale grâce à l'influence du dit ‘nouveau régionalisme’. L'article montre comment ces deux corpus théoriques orientent vers un modèle nouveau de ‘gouvernance associative’. Partant de l'expérience récente du Queensland, l'étude identifie les traits de gouvernance associative qui y sont devenus caractéristiques des réflexions de politique sociale de portée locale. Ces approches ont été traduites dans les ambitions de politique ‘combinée’ et régionale du gouvernement du Queensland. Pourtant, leur viabilité au plan politique et stratégique est incertaine. L'ombre persistante du néolibéralisme et du managérialisme continue de faire obstacle à l'innovation et à la pérennité de ces tendances. Plus directement, les limites inhérentes aux initiatives de type local ou régional comparées aux influences nationales et mondiales vont énormément restreindre la capacité des systèmes de gouvernance associative à produire des résultats démocratiques, sociaux et économiques positifs. Après un examen des récentes réformes politiques au Queensland à la lumière de cet ensemble complexe de facteurs, la conclusion propose des orientations de recherches et des lignes politiques à développer.     

The Forsaken‐Liberty Syndrome: Looking at Published Judgments to Say Whether Economists Reach a Conclusion

Do economists reach a conclusion on a given policy issue? One way to answer the question is to survey economists at large. Another is to look at the published judgments of economists who have gone on the record. Relative to an anonymous survey, going on the record makes for much greater accountability, and presumably more personal responsibility. I discuss 11 studies of economists’ published judgments. Several of them show greater support for liberalization than found among economists at large. This is offered as evidence of what I call the forsaken‐liberty syndrome. I discuss the nature of this test of such syndrome and point to some of the larger questions to which it relates.     

CITIES AND THEIR GURUS: The Role of Superstar Consultants in Post-political Urban Governance

While consultants have crept into various aspects of municipal governance, a selected few have transcended the others reaching the status of urban gurus. Although consultants are often perceived as depoliticizing urban affairs, research shows that the urban guru often instigates politicization. Research on urban gurus does thus highlight distinctions between gurus and ‘lay’ consultants, but it has paid insufficient attention to describing how, through their interaction with cities, politicization occurs. Moreover, the literature often portrays this interaction as an authority relationship in which the guru is superior, while in fact cities play an important role in bestowing ‘guru’ status. Using fieldwork, I examine the long-term interaction between Richard Florida and the City of Toronto, explaining how Florida's elevation to guru status by being brought to Toronto ended with him self-describing as ‘persona non-grata’. To explain the anomaly of this interaction and the way in which gurus instigate politicization, I differentiate between consultants’ ‘substance’ and ‘process’ roles in policy formulation processes. I show that, regarding substance, the guru offers a policy paradigm rather than policy instruments and, regarding process, their strength is in performing ideas rather than pulling strings behind the scenes—in both respects making the policy process more public and contested.     

Reinventing Multiculturalism: Urban Citizenship and the Negotiation of Ethnic Diversity in Amsterdam

A number of authors have recently suggested that cities are becoming increasingly important as sites for the negotiation of ethnic diversity. While multiculturalism has been declared ‘dead’ in many countries, cities are now experimenting with new ways to accommodate ethnic diversity. This article reports on research conducted in Amsterdam. In this city, a ‘minority policy’ has been replaced by a qualitatively different ‘diversity policy’. Even though the diversity policy meets many of the criticisms that have been made against multiculturalism, the new policy also generates its own forms of exclusion. It is concluded that the stress on intercultural interaction and an emphasis on high‐quality policies and projects can in practice produce results that run counter to the intentions of policymakers as well as critical theorists. Ironically, these two features of the diversity policy tend to depoliticize societal problems and frustrate political mobilization of some marginalized groups. Dernièrement, plusieurs auteurs ont suggéré que les villes prennent une importance croissante en tant que lieux de négociation de la diversité ethnique. Alors qu’on a annoncé la mort du multiculturalisme dans bien des pays, les villes connaissent désormais de nouveaux modes d’accueil de la diversité ethnique. Cet article rend compte de recherches menées à Amsterdam. Une ‘politique des minorités’ y a été remplacée par une ‘politique de la diversité’ différente sur le plan qualitatif. Même si cette nouvelle politique répond à plusieurs des critiques formulées à l’encontre du multiculturalisme, elle génère aussi ses propres formes d’exclusion. On peut déduire que l’accent sur l’interaction interculturelle ainsi qu’une priorité aux politiques et projets de qualité peuvent, en pratique, produrie des résultats qui viennent s’opposer aux intentions des décideurs eux‐mêmes et des théoriciens détracteurs. Bizarrement, ces deux caractéristiques de la politique de la diversité tendent à dépolitiser les problèmes sociétaux et à contrarier la mobilisation politique de certains groupes marginalisés.     

The renewed Lisbon Strategy and social exclusion policy

In the light of its manifest mid‐term failure to make progress towards its key objectives, the EU introduced in 2005 a major ‘relaunch’ of its Lisbon Strategy for economic, employment and social development. The core aspect of this was ‘prioritisation’, involving an increased focus on growth and jobs. This raised the issue of whether the pursuit of greater competitiveness would lead to a downgrading of the importance of the original social objectives of the programme. In its focal concern on the fight against social exclusion, the EU's strategy involved both employment and social objectives. These emphasised in particular the creation not only of more but of ‘better jobs’ and the pursuit of actions to reinforce ‘social inclusion’ and ‘social cohesion’. This article considers whether a significant shift did occur in policy emphasis and the implications of the Lisbon reform for progress in reducing the risks of social exclusion. It reviews first the basic changes in the formulation of the strategy and then examines in turn the effectiveness of its policy initiatives with respect to employment, the quality of work and social inclusion.     

Fast Parallels? Contesting Mobile Policy Technologies

This article extends recent examinations of incomplete or disrupted policy mobility by examining the politically volatile case of policies to manage the regional impacts of decarbonization in Australia. The article's extended case study shows how political interests differently incorporated figments of circulating policy into longstanding debates and how more‐than‐local political networks defeated an antipolitical, technocratic exercise in ‘new regional’ governance. ‘Follow the policy’ methods could not have revealed the complexities of this case. The article concludes that mobilities approaches need to be more attentive to institutional arrangements, to the contested politics of policy formation and to the ambiguities of perceived policy likenesses. This case highlights the importance of considering how antipolitical institutional architectures facilitating policy mobility relate to established political power networks.     

Defensible Space on the Move: Revisiting the Urban Geography of Alice Coleman

This article traces the movement of the concept of ‘defensible space’ from New York City in the 1970s, where it was developed by the Canadian architect/planner Oscar Newman, to London in the 1980s and into design interventions in British public housing in the 1990s, through British geographer Alice Coleman, who acted as an especially powerful transfer agent. In focusing on this urban design ‘concept’ on the move we contribute to existing scholarship on policy mobility and city building in a number of ways. First, we explore an instance of the movement/mobility of a planning concept in a historical period (the recent past) largely overlooked to date. Secondly, we demonstrate that this movement was the result of a disaggregated series of expert knowledge transfers and localized translations of pre‐policy expert knowledge, generated through university‐based research work and networks. We theorize this instance of urban planning mobility by way of the interlinked insights offered by the sociology of science and policy‐mobilities literatures. As this is an instance of university research shaping public policy it also offers an opportunity to reflect upon the meaning of ‘evidence‐based policy’ and the impact agenda in contemporary higher education.