I’ve been the Managing Editor of the Journal of Financial Views because the first problem in Summer time 1987. The JEP is printed by the American Financial Affiliation, which determined again in 2011–to my delight–that the journal can be freely obtainable on-line, from the present problem all the best way again to the primary problem. You’ll be able to obtain particular person articles or total points, and it’s obtainable in numerous e-reader codecs, too. Right here, I’ll begin with the Desk of Contents for the just-released Winter 2025 isssue, which within the Taylor family is called problem #151. Beneath which are abstracts and direct hyperlinks for all the papers. I plan to weblog extra particularly about a few of the papers within the few weeks, as effectively.
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The 2023 Merger Pointers and Past
“The 2023 Merger Guidelines and the Arc of Antitrust History,” by Daniel Francis
In 2023, the federal antitrust companies rewrote the nation’s flagship merger coverage doc, as a part of a broader “Neo-Brandeisian” effort to deliver a few deep reform of the antitrust system. The end result—the 2023 Merger Pointers—has been extremely controversial: celebrated by some as a revolutionary advance, and criticized by others as a step again towards a benighted previous. This text evaluates the 2023 steering in opposition to the arc of antitrust’s trendy historical past. It argues that the brand new steering breaks a protracted pattern of migration from construction towards welfare as the first orientation of merger enforcement, however that it does so cautiously, by reaching a fraught ambiguity between welfarist and nonwelfarist insurance policies. In inviting each revolutionary and evolutionary readings, the companies have sacrificed readability and discouraged useful offers, however they’ve additionally deferred—at the very least for now—a pointy battle between those that would protect antitrust’s governing paradigm and those that would remake it.
“Improving Economic Analysis in Merger Guidelines,” by Louis Kaplow
Merger evaluation ought to mirror fundamental precepts of choice evaluation, finest practices in industrial group economics, and teachings from associated fields. Sadly, the analytical strategies in trendy merger tips fall quick. Protocols violate customary prescriptions for info assortment and decision-making, depend on a market definition paradigm that deviates considerably from core fashions of aggressive interplay, fail to leverage central advances in understanding the effectivity penalties of mergers, and contravene or ignore elementary dynamics regarding entry. This text elaborates appropriate evaluation and contrasts it with that embodied in trendy merger tips usually employed all through the developed world, together with the 2023 Merger Pointers revision in america.
“Acquisitions to Enter New Markets,” by Carl Shapiro
How ought to antitrust enforcers deal with acquisitions by profitable companies to enter new markets? Ought to a serious pharmaceutical firm with an in depth gross sales and distribution community be permitted to accumulate a preferred drug that doesn’t compete in opposition to any of the medication it already owns? All through American financial historical past, growth by profitable companies into new markets has performed a significant function in selling competitors and spurring financial progress. Nonetheless, acquisitions to enter new markets can also hurt competitors by enabling monopolists to enlarge their empires. The 2023 Merger Pointers break new floor by asserting that the US antitrust companies will problem mergers and acquisitions that “could enable the merged firm to extend a dominant position from one market into a related market,” however they are saying little or no about how such acquisitions shall be evaluated. This text explains how antitrust enforcers can use financial proof and principle to differentiate between acquisitions to enter new markets which are dangerous and people which are useful.
The US Security Internet
“Two Histories of the Public Safety Net,” by Christopher Howard
Though poverty in america has declined over the past half century, it stays a significant issue. This text charts the historic growth of the general public security internet, beginning with means-tested applications after which including inclusive social insurance coverage applications. Over time, applications focused at folks with low incomes regularly shifted from the native to the state to the nationwide stage. Nonetheless, they remained politically susceptible as policymakers questioned the deservingness of recipients and sometimes tried to restrict money welfare. These considerations had been much less salient with inclusive applications like Social Safety and Medicare, which expanded quickly between 1950 and 1980, largely to the advantage of older People. The concluding part highlights current developments that problem the supposed weak point of means-tested applications and energy of inclusive applications.
” Did Welfare Reform Finish the Security Internet as We Knew It? The Document since 1996,” Lucie Schmidt, Lara Shore-Sheppard, and Tara Watson
This paper examines the evolution of the protection internet for low-income households since welfare reform in 1996 promised to “end welfare as we know it”. The overall bundle of helps has turn into considerably extra beneficiant, however has modified in character. Assist has shifted away from month-to-month money transfers in the direction of tax credit and in-kind advantages, and has expanded for working households whereas declining for these with out earnings. Assets obtainable to married-parent households have expanded, whereas these for adults with out dependents stay scant. We additionally doc that, regardless of expanded state flexibilities, variability in generosity throughout states didn’t develop on account of simultaneous expansions of federal meals help and tax credit. Total, these modifications mirror ongoing competition over two key coverage points. First, what’s the acceptable trade-off between selling work versus stopping materials hardship? Second, what’s the acceptable function for states versus the federal authorities in figuring out security internet generosity?
“Administrative Burdens in the Social Safety Net,” Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan
Administrative burdens form folks’s experiences of, and entry to, social security internet applications. They will undermine the targets these applications try to realize. Such burdens are the expertise of coverage implementation as onerous, and come up by way of studying prices (realizing in regards to the existence of and necessities of public providers), compliance prices (effort and time spent coping with bureaucratic calls for, comparable to paperwork and documentation), and psychological prices (emotional responses to citizen-state interactions). Such frictions can considerably restrict eligible peoples’ entry to public providers they need, would profit from, and are legally entitled to obtain. These with the fewest assets, and the best wants, could battle extra to beat burdens; the frictions thereby reinforcing present inequality. As a analysis method, administrative burden provides an intuitive and accessible approach for coverage actors and researchers to enhance state capability and the supply of public providers.
Articles
“Getting Infrastructure Built: The Law and Economics of Permitting,” by Zachary Liscow
Given the advantages to financial progress and financial mobility, and the necessity to transition to inexperienced vitality, getting infrastructure constructed is an pressing problem. I first evaluation the proof on the prices and advantages of the present regime of presidency approvals for such constructing: within the US, allowing is sluggish, infrastructure is dear, and environmental outcomes aren’t notably good. I suggest a framework for reform with two dimensions: the facility of the chief department to resolve and its capability to plan. After contemplating reform prospects, I suggest that reforming each dimensions might result in a attainable “green bargain” that advantages effectivity, the surroundings, and democracy.
“A Practical Guide to Shift-Share Instruments,” by Kirill Borusyak, Peter Hull, and Xavier Jaravel
A current econometric literature reveals two distinct paths for identification with shift-share devices, leveraging both many exogenous shifts or exogenous shares. We current the core logic of each paths and sensible takeaways by way of easy checklists. A wide range of empirical settings illustrate key factors.
“Tax Privacy,” by Joel Slemrod
Implementing an equitable and environment friendly tax system requires that the federal government have entry to sure details about taxpayers. If the demand for privateness implies limiting authorities’s entry to related info, it constrains the extent to which a tax system can obtain these targets. On this approach, demand for limiting authorities entry to info imposes social prices. This text discusses the points of privateness that matter, together with leaks, and explores sure international locations’ public disclosure of taxpayer info. It then discusses what is thought about, and the difficulties of ascertaining, how taxpayers worth tax privateness, whether or not providing decisions to taxpayers about info revelation can ease the stress between privateness and in any other case optimum tax coverage, and makes use of the wealth tax for instance of the coverage tradeoffs that come up.
“Philipp Strack, 2024 Clark Medalist,” by Drew Fudenberg
The 2024 John Bates Clark Medal of the American Financial Affiliation was awarded to Philipp Strack, Professor of Economics at Yale College, for his pathbreaking contributions to the examine of particular person choice making, which have launched new methods, improved our understanding of necessary financial phenomena, and helped spark a brand new wave of analysis on the economics of knowledge whereas constructing bridges between trendy financial principle and a variety of adjoining disciplines. This text summarizes a few of Philipp’s papers, and explains how they construct on and enhance earlier work.
“Recommendations for Further Reading,” by Timothy Taylor
