Predatory pricing has long been a contentious issue among lawmakers and economists. Legal actions are continually brought against companies. But the question remains: how likely are firms to cut prices in order to drive rivals out of business? Predatory firms risk having to keep prices below cost for such an extended period that it would become cost-prohibitive. Recently, economists have turned to game theory to examine circumstances under which predatory tactics could be profitable. John R. Lott, Jr. provides long-awaited empirical analysis in this book. By examining firms accused of or convicted of predation over a thirty-year period of time, he shows that these firms are not organized as the game-theoretic or other models of predation would predict. In contrast, what evidence exists for predation suggests that government enterprises are more of a threat. Lott presents crucial new data and analysis, attacking an issue of major legal and economic importance. This impressive work will be of great interest to economists, legal scholars, and antitrust policy makers.

An interdisciplinary examination of credible commitment to fiscal responsibility and its relevance to current macroeconomic policy making.

Managerial economics, meaning the application of economic methods in the managerial decision-making process, is a fundamental part of any business or management course. This textbook covers all the main aspects of managerial economics: the theory of the firm; demand theory and estimation; production and cost theory and estimation; market structure and pricing; game theory; investment analysis and government policy. It includes numerous and extensive case studies, as well as review questions and problem-solving sections at the end of each chapter. Nick Wilkinson adopts a user-friendly problem-solving approach which takes the reader in gradual steps from simple problems through increasingly difficult material to complex case studies, providing an understanding of how the relevant principles can be applied to real-life situations involving managerial decision-making. This book will be invaluable to business and economics students at both undergraduate and graduate levels who have a basic training in calculus and quantitative methods.

With this book, Richard A. Epstein provides a spirited and systematic defense of classical liberalism against the critiques mounted against it over the past thirty years. One of the most distinguished and provocative legal scholars writing today, Epstein here explains his controversial ideas in what will quickly come to be considered one of his cornerstone works. He begins by laying out his own vision of the key principles of classical liberalism: respect for the autonomy of the individual, a strong system of private property rights, the voluntary exchange of labor and possessions, and prohibitions against force or fraud. Nonetheless, he not only recognizes but insists that state coercion is crucial to safeguarding these principles of private ordering and supplying the social infrastructure on which they depend. Within this framework, Epstein then shows why limited government is much to be preferred over the modern interventionist welfare state. Many of the modern attacks on the classical liberal system seek to undermine the moral, conceptual, cognitive, and psychological foundations on which it rests. Epstein rises to this challenge by carefully rebutting each of these objections in turn. For instance, Epstein demonstrates how our inability to judge the preferences of others means we should respect their liberty of choice regarding their own lives. And he points out the flaws in behavioral economic arguments which, overlooking strong evolutionary pressures, claim that individual preferences are unstable and that people are unable to adopt rational means to achieve their own ends. Freedom, Epstein ultimately shows, depends upon a skepticism that rightly shuns making judgments about what is best for individuals, but that also avoids the relativistic trap that all judgments about our political institutions have equal worth. A brilliant defense of classical liberalism, Skepticism and Freedom will rightly be seen as an intellectual landmark.

On its initial publication in 1998, John R. Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime drew both lavish praise and heated criticism. More than a decade later, it continues to play a key role in ongoing arguments over gun-control laws: despite all the attacks by gun-control advocates, no one has ever been able to refute Lott’s simple, startling conclusion that more guns mean less crime. Relying on the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever conducted on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws, the book directly challenges common perceptions about the relationship of guns, crime, and violence. For this third edition, Lott draws on an additional ten years of data—including provocative analysis of the effects of gun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C—that brings the book fully up to date and further bolsters its central contention.

The role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election raised questions in the minds of many Americans about the relationships between judges and political influence; the following years saw equally heated debates over the appropriate role of political ideology in selecting federal judges. Legal scholars have always debated these questions—asking, in effect, how much judicial systems operate on merit and principle and how much they are shaped by politics. The Japanese Constitution, like many others, requires that all judges be "independent in the exercise of their conscience and bound only by this Constitution and its laws." Consistent with this requirement, Japanese courts have long enjoyed a reputation for vigilant independence—an idea challenged only occasionally, and most often anecdotally. But in this book, J. Mark Ramseyer and Eric B. Rasmusen use the latest statistical techniques to examine whether that reputation always holds up to scrutiny—whether, and to what extent, the careers of lower court judges can be manipulated to political advantage. On the basis of careful econometric analysis of career data for hundreds of judges, Ramseyer and Rasmusen find that Japanese politics do influence judicial careers, discreetly and indirectly: judges who decide politically charged cases in ways favored by the ruling party enjoy better careers after their decisions than might otherwise be expected, while dissenting judges are more likely to find their careers hampered by assignments to less desirable positions. Ramseyer and Rasmusen's sophisticated yet accessible analysis has much to offer anyone interested in either judicial independence or the application of econometric techniques in the social sciences.

This timely book addresses the important issue of the negative effects of anticompetitive regulation on industry and the massive economic harm it causes. The distinguished contributors, including economic and legal scholars, advocate the need for a review of all anticompetitive laws and address several industry and country case studies with the ultimate aim of providing recommendations to eliminate the impact of anticompetitive regulation. The first part of the book considers regulations affecting private business and professions, part two covers public utility and public services regulation, whilst part three discusses the role of institutions and competition authorities in relation to anticompetitive practices. The authors draft guidelines, based on economic evidence and legal arguments, which they believe would provide a starting point for the European Union to address the problem. They go on to propose possible implementation strategies for these guidelines from both an institutional and legal perspective. The book also includes a historical perspective on the evolution of anticompetitive regulation complemented by an overview of the actions currently being implemented to address and reverse the problem in other jurisdictions.

Competitive Transformation of the Postal and Delivery Sector is an indispensable source of information and analysis on the current state of the postal and delivery sector. It offers current insights of leading researchers and practitioners into strategy and regulation as well as the economics of this sector. Issues addressed include national and international perspectives, financial viability, the universal service obligation, regulation, competition, entry, the role of scale and scope economies, the nature and role of cost and demand analysis in postal service, productivity, interaction of law and economics, human resources, transition and reform issues. The papers in the book were selected from the papers presented at the 11th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics, Toledo, Spain, June 4-7, 2003.