Economic
and Game Theory
News
Careful what you wish for department:
John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel is demanding the right to charge Google for using the Verizon network. But does he think he is going to charge Google - or is Google going to charge him for letting his network carry Google? Do owners of movie theaters charge movie producers for allowing movies to be shown in their theaters? Would you pay more or less for a Verizon internet service that didn't have Google on it? Imagine the ad campaign: "Buy Verizon - we don't offer Google."
[Posted at 02/07/2006 06:33 PM by David K. Levine 
]
Hirshleifer Conference:
A Conference in Honor of Jack Hirshleifer will take place Friday-Saturday March 10-11, 2006 at UCLA. Details at the conference website.
[Posted at 01/24/2006 01:56 PM by David K. Levine ]
Sony-BMG: The Sony-BMG fiasco has demolished one argument for obtaining music legally rather than illegally over P2P networks. The RIAA advises against using file sharing networks because "file-sharers’ computers are vulnerable to
the viruses infecting other machines on the P2P networks." Leaving aside just how great this vulnerability is - F-Secure reports that there are no viruses to infect MP3 audio files - Sony-BMG has handily demolished this argument by planting its own malware on users computers.
[Posted at 11/29/2005 05:46 PM by David K. Levine ]
Scott Freeman:
If you would like to learn more about Scott and his work, Preston McAfee has created a nice site in his honor.
[Posted at 10/12/2005 12:39 PM by David K. Levine ]
About Intellectual Property:
Eric Rasmusen has a nice post about the role of marketing in generating profit to cover the fixed cost of innovation. The model works well, for example, explaining how W.W. Norton profited from the 9/11 Commission Report, even though there was no copyright.
[Posted at 10/11/2005 11:03 AM by David K. Levine ]
Against Intellectual Monopoly:
Updated versions of the first six eight chapters now online.
[Posted at 09/26/2005 12:05 PM by David K. Levine ]
Theoretical Economics:
Now taking submissions. We aim to become the best specialty journal in economic theory. Here are some photos Ariel Rubinstein took of our secret meeting in London.
[Posted at 08/04/2005 10:25 AM by David K. Levine ]
Two Open Access Microeconomic Textbooks:
Preston McAfee's Introduction to Economic Analysis and Yoram Bauman's Quantum Microeconomics are both collaborative microeconomics textbooks released under open source licenses. Let's see if we can have a few really good textbooks, rather than dozens of mediocre ones.
[Posted at 07/26/2005 02:01 PM by David K. Levine ]
In Memoriam Jack Hirshleifer:
July 26, 2005. Memories of Jack.
[Posted at 07/26/2005 10:29 AM by David K. Levine ]The Microsoft Thought Police:
In the war on thought thieves thought police must be the logical next step.
[Posted at 05/14/2005 10:57 AM by David K. Levine ]
