Law Commons^™

The Real Monopoly Is In The Boardroom, Ramsi Woodcock

Law Faculty Popular Media

We have always thought of the problem of monopoly as a problem of size or of markets. We say that Facebook is a monopoly because it is too big, or because it is in the nature of networked markets to reward scale.

But what if the problem of monopoly were really a problem of firm governance?

We don’t hate monopolies in themselves; we hate them for what they do. They charge us higher prices or deliver us lower-quality products. They pay us less or make our jobs harder.

But what a monopolist does is determined not by its size …

What Those Shocking Texas Power Bills Have In Common With Uber Surges, Broadway Tickets, And Airfare, Ramsi Woodcock

Law Faculty Popular Media

You might think that the $17,000 bills that Texas electricity providers are sending to customers who kept their lights on during last week’s historic storm reflect red state libertarian ideology run amuck. But you would be wrong.

They are actually the product of the exact same approach to markets reflected in the congestion-pricing plan for midtown Manhattan adopted by the New York State legislature in 2019, in the way Broadway priced tickets for shows like The Lion King and Wicked before the pandemic, and the way airlines have been pricing seats for years.

The problem is not ideological but intellectual, …