Luke Herrine

How long, law and economics, will you abuse our patience?

Right, but in important ways a precursor to Caesarism! Maybe not in the most important ways. I was being cheeky and stretching, probably too far.

"Few of these threats have escalated beyond strongly worded warnings...It seems more likely that this FTC will adopt the strategy we have seen at several other agencies... : big talk that pushes the limits of law in the hope inducing anticipatory compliance or extracting corrupt settlements."

I might write a “come at me, bro” response to try to spur serious engagement. But mostly it’s demoralizing. And consistent with how LPE-ers have long been treated

IIRC Macey was initially involved in organizing the symposium (with @genevievelakier.bsky.social)

No way. These are the established scholars at elite institutions. The George Mason version was just as dismissive and just as uninterested in actually reading articles. And they were paid a lot of money by sympathetic donors!

His results don’t even establish the title! And that’s on his own description!!

It is bad. Less op-ed but tendentious definition of economics and does not engage with LPE literature beyond one article and then does not do so seriously (see Amy’s response in footnotes)

Oh so now you support the Senate oligarchy over the tribune of the people?

ICYMI: contains my theory of WTF is going on at the FTC

Whenever an l&e scholar is surprised that I can respond to a skeptical question with knowledge of the relevant concepts, I now know that this is the subconscious line of thinking they’re repressing

Well, it’s not a moral discipline. Purely empirical

Feel free to hop in! I think I’m going to write a reflection in this whole symposium. Very discouraging

The goal isn’t to promote efficiency, even, because we’re constrained by the limits of “protection”!

Later he says "consumers" doesn't just mean consumers. Back to the same ambiguities

Erik Hovenkamp’s contribution to this symposium explicitly restates the consumer surplus (which is maybe the trading partner surplus, who knows?) definition of welfare as if nobody has ever understood, let alone critiqued, it

I think the answer is the latter. There’s now a longstanding pattern of l&e scholars treating the LPE literature as one article long even when they’ve engaged with avowedly LPE scholarship in their areas of expertise

(Although not going into the pre-neoclassical tradition)

The Goldin & Liscow article meets this standard

The new Fusionism: PT Barnum & Norman Vincent Peale

L&E critics cite and discuss more than one LPE article challenge: impossible

No! But there is a piece that more directly engages abolitionist literature* in this symposium:

lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...

*which is not, like, the only view on the crim system in LP. It's weird that all these responses treat articles by LPE scholars as announcing The LPE View

Ironically one of the $10k George Mason anti-LPE essays criticizes my blog post providing a basic critical introduction to the concept of "efficiency" as being written in too casual a tone, like an op-ed.

No, it only works for some kinds of stuff

Market Governance in Trumpworld Over the past year, the much-touted right-wing embrace of anti-monopolism has been reduced to a distant memory. What has emerged instead is a personalist form of market governance…

Today, Luke Herrine (@lookheron.bsky.social) offers a whirlwind tour of market governance in Trumpworld.

While most agencies have embraced a pro-monopolist, pro-corruption reorientation, the lone exception is the FTC. Why is this? And what does it suggest about market regulation under Trump 2.0?

always gna learn something you didn't expect to learn from @lookheron.bsky.social @lpeblog.bsky.social

This one's for you, Jon:

lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...

There's another piece in the symposium about how L&E is actually fundamentally about empirical methods and LPE should learn something. It discusses 1 LPE article and doesn't even address the rebuttal in another

lawreview.uchicago.edu/sites/defaul...

Journal of Law and Political Economy

Not ALPE, but there is JLPE:

escholarship.org/uc/lawandpol...

Trump Admin stopped opposing the lawsuit against Biden Admin's major new income-driven repayment plan, which rendered the lawsuit moot before a settlement could be reached. Oops! Now that plan is the law until further notice.