I'm super excited for my new paper with Alex Tabarrok and Mark Whitmeyer. tl;dr: price controls cause chaos. That chaos causes misallocation. We develop new tools to measure that misallocation, which is 1-9 the size of the Harberger triangle www.economicforces.xyz/p/price-cont...

Forthcoming IJIO article by @briancalbrecht.bsky.social & Ryan A. Decker 📖Markups and Business Dynamism across Industries doi.org/10.1016/j.ij... @sciencedirect.bsky.social

"The China Shock destroyed millions of American manufacturing jobs." At least that's a claim. But prices connect everyone. When you shock one part of the market, the "control" group moves. Today we have 3,000 words on "The Missing Intercept" problem. www.economicforces.xyz/p/the-invisi...

So Instacart showed different people different prices for eggs. Shocking? Before the outrage, ignore the Twitter press release. Look at what they actually found. Understand the facts and the economic theory to make sense of it www.economicforces.xyz/p/instacarts...

The U.S. has enjoyed a decades-long economic advantage thanks to its reputation as the safest place in the world for investors to put their money and for entrepreneurs to build their businesses. President Trump may be chipping away at that advantage. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/b... #EconSky

Markets must become competitive. The market is a process. This is the core (pun very much intended) idea underlying the shortcut of supply and demand. www.economicforces.xyz/p/markets-mu...

“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” Cook said. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... Amen.

When I think, “what countries policies should we emulate?” I definitely think The Bahamas and Sudan www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/defaul...

“Let me make what appears to have become a radical argument: Simple economics is surprisingly good at making real-world predictions.” trying to break the mold with a defense of economics www.wsj.com/opinion/you-...

I love this article by @briancalbrecht.bsky.social in the Wall Street Journal (and not just because I am graciously mentioned by name). He provides a simple but powerful defense of Economics, of the supply and demand framework.

Very nice blog entry by @BrianCAlbrecht Why do economists have "tariff derangement syndrome"? It's not politics—tariffs violate every principle of good taxation we've learned over the past century. 1/8

And in the meantime, actually add tariffs on Canada, the EU, and a bunch of other allies

@briancalbrecht.bsky.social strikes again with a brilliant newsletter on why tariffs are a terrible idea. Put in very simple terms. Read it! 👉🏽 www.economicforces.xyz/p/6-reasons-...

Why do economists hate tariffs more than other taxes? Today's newsletter is 6 reasons why tariffs are a terrible way to raise revenue tl;dr they violate all the main results of how to raise revenue efficiently www.economicforces.xyz/p/6-reasons-...

Uber is good, actually. From @mattyglesias.bsky.social www.slowboring.com/p/uber-is-go...

Another excellent newsletter by @briancalbrecht.bsky.social on whether tariffs are likely to increase innovation, with lots of top references from empirical research (from @rjuhasz.bsky.social , David Autor, Nick Bloom, @johnvanreenen.bsky.social & others) 🔗 www.economicforces.xyz/p/will-tarif...

Economics has core insights that get ignored by politicians. The most fundamental? A price isn't just a number—it's a signal wrapped in an incentive. But why do policymakers need to know this? www.economicforces.xyz/p/prices-are...

I'm once again asking people to read what I actually wrote www.economicforces.xyz/p/congestion...

Tons of food for thought in this great article by @bencasselman.bsky.social. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/b...

Raising the price of driving reduces driving. NYC's congestion pricing is clearly another W for economic theory. (Many such cases.) But is it a good policy? After all, less driving isn’t the goal. I walk through how to think about the costs & benefits www.economicforces.xyz/p/congestion...

When you buy a product, you pay twice: 1. Money to the company 2. Time to actually use it Most economics ignores #2. With Tom Phelan and Nick Pretnar, we show how this consumer time use changes markups, firm entry, and efficiency. 🧵 www.briancalbrecht.com/Albrecht_Phe...

eg, Bhattachara, et al (2023). Even in concentrated markets (HHI>2000), 25% yield lower prices, 25% higher ones, and 50% no real change. In this concentration range, supports inference that roughly 75% produce cost reductions sufficient to reverse price effects. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Our new post on labor markets and antitrust. Lots of putting the cart before the horse in this field

There's never been a better time to study the "market process," as Austrian economists call it. @jchaltiwangerum.bsky.social, his coauthors, and a whole slew of others have developed data and theory. It's just called business dynamism, not market process. www.economicforces.xyz/p/mr-haltiwa...

The C&S divestiture was always a key part of whether this deal would go through. If Kroger really just ignored concerns, that's not a good strategy. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

#EconSky Price theory à la UCLA taught by Jack Hirshleifer in 1972. His course outline with reading list has been transcribed and posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. www.irwincollier.com/ucla-price-t...

Shot, chaser

Today in what undergrads think economics professors are researching. www.nber.org/papers/w33234

This is one of Vernon’s underappreciated papers. Well they really all are but this one especially. Only sellers setting the price leads to prices being LOWER than equilibrium. Totally contradicts naive thinking that equates price setting with pricing power. But makes sense from asymmetric info POV

Today I wrote about an FTC Commissioner's batshit crazy statements arguing that the FTC can punish any social media company that doesn't follow Elon's lead in how it moderates. Also it can punish advertisers for not advertising on X. www.techdirt.com/2024/12/06/g...

The ranks of economists as columnists thins out even more.

Want to do a funded, joint Oxford-CMA PhD on market power? Howard Smith (Oxford) and the CMA Microeconomics Unit are looking for promising candidates interested in doing research on the topic of "Beyond markups: understanding changes to competition, concentration, and market power". #EconSky 1/2

The Catch-22 of Big Tech antitrust: Breaking up companies like Google and Amazon risks destroying the very scale and network effects that make their services so valuable to consumers. My new piece in The Dispatch: thedispatch.com/article/big-...

Today we have a new issue of Works in Progress! Articles on: - Animals as chemical factories - How Madrid built its metro so fast & cheaply - How big data created the modern dairy cow - Where the glamour of progress went - Solving homelessness - The urbanism of cruise ships - Functionalism!

Key point by the NYT: Trump's new appointment to head antitrust at the DOJ is a bad sign for big tech companies, but it's not obvious she'll clamp down on M&A more broadly.

Economists may not politicians favorite group. But we know some stuff! I was on The Curious Task Podcast discussing what economists can contribute to policy discussions thecurioustask.podbean.com/e/brian-albr...

What happens after anesthesia rollup acquisitions? Within six months, prices increase 18%. Within two years, they increase 25 to 30%. New working paper by my amazing student Aslihan Asil (on the law market this year!) and her co-authors: www.nber.org/papers/w33217

Really interesting piece from @kevinrinz.bsky.social trying to reconcile the various (and to some degree conflicting) signals being sent by quits, openings and hires right now. #EconSky kevinrinz.substack.com/p/revisiting...

for the biggest antitrust nerds: last week the DOJ quietly walked back a 1977 report on the Robinson Patman price discrimination law. The report had disavowed enforcement of the law, but the DOJ now says it "should not be relied on for current matters" www.justice.gov/atr/media/13...

One of my students asked me for book recommendations. They're looking for popular econ books -- the kind that are both fun to read, and which give you some new insight into the world. So I'm compiling a list of recommended popular econ books. Lemme ask: What books would YOU suggest I include?

While I'm vocally skeptical of the current administration's approach to antitrust, this oped makes the same mistake: over indexing on the tech cases/companies Most antitrust is much more mundane and beneficial www.wsj.com/opinion/anti...

*Economists looking for a clean diff-in-diff*

What’s wrong with Britain’s economy? I appeared on the FT’s Economics Show with @soumayakeynes.bsky.social to talk about why banning investment in housing and infrastructure might be at the root of our problems. on.ft.com/3ZcCgwp

New podcast alert! This one on what's wrong with Britain's economy, with Sam Bowman link.chtbl.com/economicsshow

Absolutely agree

Hey @neilirwin.bsky.social, just a heads up this account exists @officialneilirwin.bsky.social