Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Herfindahl-Hirschman at the Movies

By Connor Waldoch of Medium.

Disney wants to buy Fox. This week in my micro classes we are talking about mergers and when the government (Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission) might challenge mergers.

If two firms merge, the new firm, of course, has a bigger share of the market than either of the old firms. When does this gain in market share threaten competition enough to be challenged in court?

Waldoch mentions the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index HHI. The market share of each firm in an industry is squared and then all those numbers are added up to get the HHI. There are 3 categories according to Justice:

Unconcentrated Markets: HHI below 1500
Moderately Concentrated Markets: HHI between 1500 and 2500
Highly Concentrated Markets: HHI above 2500

One thing to add is that if a merger increases the HHI by more than 100 points and the new HHI of the industry is Moderately Concentrated, then the merger is likely to be challenged.

Waldoch shows a graph of what the HHI of the movie industry would have been over several years with Disney and Fox as separate companies and with them having been merged. He does not state specific numbers, but it looks like for 2016, if the two firms had merged, it would have raised the HHI of the movie industry by 500 or so points, from about 1250 to 1750. So that would make it likely to be challenged according to the guidelines. Justice is currently reviewing it.

Here is the graph Waldoch uses:

Friday, March 23, 2018

Ozzy Osbourne Makes The Economics News

See Ozzy Osbourne Brings Antitrust Lawsuit Against AEG for Tying London and L.A. Venues by Eriq Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter. Excerpt:
"On Wednesday, the heavy metal musican filed an antitrust lawsuit against AEG, alleging the entertainment industry giant is illegally tying its venues in London and Los Angeles.

"The tying arrangement at issue is so explicit and brazen that AEG has given it a name: the 'Staples Center Commitment,'" states the complaint filed in California federal court. "Through the Staples Center Commitment, AEG requires that artists and musicians cannot play London’s most essential large concert venue—the O2 Arena —unless they agree to play the Staples Center during the part of their tours that takes place in Los Angeles. Both the O2 and Staples are owned by AEG."

Osborne, represented by lawyers at the top firm of Latham & Watkins, explain that O2 is a "must have" venue for touring musicians because of its popularity and environment.

"Unlike London, however, Los Angeles is a competitive venue market— or has been since at least January 2014, when the 'Forum' reopened in Inglewood after a $100 million renovation," the complaint continues. "Artists touring in Los Angeles have therefore been able to enjoy the benefits of competition between Staples and the Forum. Ozzy would have been such an artist if AEG had not insisted, through the Staples Center Commitment, that he perform at Staples—the venue that AEG owns."

Osborne says he tried to book O2 for the "No More Tours 2" tour and requested February 2019 only to be told that it was available with the condition he play the Staples Center."

The Clayton Act of 1914 outlaws such tying contracts if they substantially lessen competition. It will be interesting to see how far this case goes and what the courts decide. It might matter if there are other venues available. A tying contract is when a firm says that "if you buy product A from us you must also buy product B."

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Is There Economic And Political Meaning In "The Wizard of Oz?"

We covered international trade in my micro class recently and the text book has something about this in that chapter.

To get a handle on this, you can read Money and Politics in the Land of Oz By Quentin P. Taylor. Also, for my students, there is an article in chapter 15 of the micro book by Tucker and in chapter 18 in the macro book. Below is an excerpt from the Taylor paper:


"Dorothy, the protagonist of the story, represents an individualized ideal of the American people. She is each of us at our best-kind but self-respecting, guileless but levelheaded, wholesome but plucky. She is akin to Everyman, or, in modern parlance, “the girl next door.” Dorothy lives in Kansas, where virtually everything-the treeless prairie, the sun-beaten grass, the paint-stripped house, even Aunt Em and Uncle Henry-is a dull, drab, lifeless gray. This grim depiction reflects the forlorn condition of Kansas in the late 1880s and early 1890s, when a combination of scorching droughts, severe winters, and an invasion of grasshoppers reduced the prairie to an uninhabitable wasteland. The result for farmers and all who depended on agriculture for their livelihood was devastating. Many ascribed their misfortune to the natural elements, called it quits, and moved on. Others blamed the hard times on bankers, the railroads, and various middlemen who seemed to profit at the farmers’ expense. Angry victims of the Kansas calamity also took aim at the politicians, who often appeared indifferent to their plight. Around these economic and political grievances, the Populist movement coalesced.

In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Populism spread rapidly throughout the Midwest and into the South, but Kansas was always the site of its most popular and radical elements. In 1890, Populist candidates began winning seats in state legislatures and Congress, and two years later Populists in Kansas gained control of the lower house of the state assembly, elected a Populist governor, and sent a Populist to the U.S. Senate. The twister that carries Dorothy to Oz symbolizes the Populist cyclone that swept across Kansas in the early 1890s. Baum was not the first to use the metaphor. Mary E. Lease, a fire-breathing Populist orator, was often referred to as the “Kansas Cyclone,” and the free-silver movement was often likened to a political whirlwind that had taken the nation by storm. Although Dorothy does not stand for Lease, Baum did give her (in the stage version) the last name “Gale”-a further pun on the cyclone metaphor.

The name of Dorothy’s canine companion, Toto, is also a pun, a play on teetotaler. Prohibitionists were among the Populists’ most faithful allies, and the Populist hope William Jennings Bryan was himself a “dry.” As Dorothy embarks on the Yellow Brick Road, Toto trots “soberly” behind her, just as the Prohibitionists soberly followed the Populists.

When Dorothy’s twister-tossed house comes to rest in Oz, it lands squarely on the wicked Witch of the East, killing her instantly. The startled girl emerges from the abode to find herself in a strange land of remarkable beauty, whose inhabitants, the diminutive Munchkins, rejoice at the death of the Witch. The Witch represents eastern financial-industrial interests and their gold-standard political allies, the main targets of Populist venom. Midwestern farmers often blamed their woes on the nefarious practices of Wall Street bankers and the captains of industry, whom they believed were engaged in a conspiracy to “enslave” the “little people,” just as the Witch of the East had enslaved the Munchkins. Populists viewed establishment politicians, including presidents, as helpless pawns or willing accomplices. Had not President Cleveland bowed to eastern bankers by repealing the Silver Purchase Act in 1893, thus further restricting much-needed credit? Had not McKinley (prompted by the wealthy industrialist Mark Hanna) made the gold standard the centerpiece of his campaign against Bryan and free silver?"
Now an excerpt from Tucker:
"Gold is always a fascinating story: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was first published in 1900 and this children's tale has been interpreted as an allegory for political and economic events of the 1890s. For example, the Yellow Brick Road represents the gold standard, Oz in the title is an abbreviation for ounce, Dorothy is the naive public, Emerald City symbolizes Washington, D.C., the Tin Woodman represents the industrial worker, the Scarecrow is the farmer, and the Cyclone is a metaphor for a political revolution. In the end, Dorothy discovers magical powers in her silver shoes (changed to ruby in the 1939 film) to find her way home and not the fallacy of the Yellow Brick Road. Although the author of the story, L. Frank Baum, never stated it was his intention, it can be argued that the issue of the story concerns the election of 1896. Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan (the Cowardly Lion) supported fixing the value of the dollar to both gold and silver (bimetallism), but Republican William McKinley (the Wicked Witch) advocated using only the gold standard. Since McKinley won, the United States remained on the Yellow Brick Road."
But not everyone agrees with this. Economist Bradley Hansen wrote an article titled The Fable of the Allegory: The Wizard of Oz in Economics in the Journal of Economic Education in 2002. Here is his conclusion:
"Rockoff noted that the empirical evidence that Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as an allegory was slim, but he compared an allegorical interpretation to a model and suggested that “economists should not have any difficulty accepting, at least provisionally, an elegant but controversial model” (Rockoff 1990, 757). He was right—we did not have any difficulty accepting it. Despite Rockoff’s warning, we appear to have accepted the story wholeheartedly rather than provisionally, simply because of its elegance. It is as difficult to prove that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was not a monetary allegory as it is to prove that it was. In the end, we will never know for certain what Baum was thinking when he wrote the book. I suggest that the vast majority of the evidence weighs heavily against the allegorical interpretation. It should be remembered that no record exists that Baum ever acknowledged any political meanings in the story and that no one even suggested such an interpretation until the 1960s. There certainly does not seem to be sufficient evidence to overwhelm Baum’s explicit statement in the introduction of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that his sole purpose was to entertain children and not to impress upon them some moral. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a great story. Telling students that the Populist movement was like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz does seem to catch their attention. It may be a useful pedagogical tool to illuminate the debate on bimetallism, but we should stop telling our students that it was written for that purpose."
I found a review of the book in the NY Times from 1900 and it does not mention anything about OZ having political or economic meaning. The book was also made into a musical a few years later and none of the reviews of the musical mention any political or economic meaning.