Law Commons^™

Probing For Holes In The 100-Year-Old Baseball Exemption: A New Post-Alston Challenge, Sam C. Ehrlich

University of Cincinnati Law Review

As professional baseball’s unique exemption to antitrust law celebrates its one-hundredth year of existence, it faces a new attack in Nostalgia Partners v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, a claim by a group of minor league owners shut out of MLB’s recent restructuring of its minor league affiliate system. While the baseball exemption has weathered dozens of similar challenges over the past century, the Nostalgia Partners plaintiffs claim that circumstances on the Supreme Court have changed enough that the justices would be willing to overturn or narrow the exemption in their favor. This claim rests with the Court’s …

Facebook, Welfare, And Natural Monopoly: A Quantitative Analysis Of Antitrust Remedies, Felix B. Chang, Seth Benzell

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article advances a novel theoretical model for assessing policy interventions against Facebook. As prosecutors barrel forward against digital platforms, soon it will fall upon courts and, eventually, regulators to devise remedies. We argue that any sensible solution must include quantification of the welfare effects on the platform’s various constituents. Our model prioritizes the effects upon total societal welfare—or, in economists’ terms, social welfare. Applied to Facebook, the model calculates social welfare as the sum of four components: (i) consumer welfare; (ii) advertising profits; (iii) tax revenues; and (iv) the value of a large user base.

Drawing on surveys of …

Racially Collusive Boycotts: African American Purchasing Power In The Wigs And Hair Extensions Market, Felix B. Chang, Janelle Thompson, Anisha Rakhra

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Essay analyzes expressive boycotts in the market for wigs and hair extensions, where consumers are primarily African Americans and producers are almost uniformly Korean Americans. This type of ethnically segmented and misaligned (“ESM”) market raises unique doctrinal and theoretical questions. Under antitrust caselaw, the treatment of a campaign to divert business from Korean American–owned to African American–owned hair stores is uncertain because of the campaign’s mixed social and economic motives. Delving into the theoretical implications of this ESM market can help steer the doctrine appropriately. Along the way, such an exercise illuminates the nuances of racial solidarity and market …