Louis Kaplow – författare

The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics presents a unified conceptual framework for analyzing taxation--the first to be systematically developed in several decades. An original treatment of the subject rather than a textbook synthesis, the book contains new analysis that generates novel results, including some that overturn long-standing conventional wisdom. This fresh approach should change thinking, research, and teaching for decades to come. Building on the work of James Mirrlees, Anthony Atkinson and Joseph Stiglitz, and subsequent researchers, and in the spirit of classics by A. C. Pigou, William Vickrey, and Richard Musgrave, this book steps back from particular lines of inquiry to consider the field as a whole, including the relationships among different fiscal instruments. Louis Kaplow puts forward a framework that makes it possible to rigorously examine both distributive and distortionary effects of particular policies despite their complex interactions with others. To do so, various reforms--ranging from commodity or estate and gift taxation to regulation and public goods provision--are combined with a distributively offsetting adjustment to the income tax.The resulting distribution-neutral reform package holds much constant while leaving in play the distinctive effects of the policy instrument under consideration. By applying this common methodology to disparate subjects, The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics produces significant cross-fertilization and yields solutions to previously intractable problems.

A fundamental economic reconstruction of merger analysis to strengthen our ability to determine mergers’ likely effects and improve merger regulation.Why rethink merger analysis? Because methods employed throughout the world violate basic precepts of decision analysis and economics. Fundamental principles are underdeveloped, inhibiting research, policy formulation, and merger review. In Rethinking Merger Analysis, Louis Kaplow undertakes a foundational analysis of the questions central to understanding and regulating horizontal mergers and shows why many conventional practices need to be altered or replaced. On the empirical front, Kaplow offers insights, identifies shortcomings, and proposes extensions of existing research. Altogether, merger review can be greatly improved to better identify harmful mergers and avoid thwarting beneficial ones.The correct economic analysis of anticompetitive effects conflicts sharply with the reigning market definition paradigm. This protocol is more deeply flawed than appreciated, readily produces large errors, and can result in uncertainty bounds on challenge thresholds of two orders of magnitude. Merger efficiencies are underanalyzed because of the failure to draw on relevant disciplines and pertinent industry expertise. Postmerger entry’s role is mischaracterized in merger guidelines, and its direct welfare effects are ignored. Entry induced by the prospect of a subsequent buyout has until recently been disregarded. Proper assessment requires a dynamic framing that accounts for a merger regime’s influence on the creation and capabilities of new generations of startups that are central to economic dynamism.This book eschews advocacy and instead focuses on clear thinking—indeed, rethinking—about how to improve merger policy and assessment.

By what criteria should public policy be evaluated? Fairness and justice? Or the welfare of individuals? Debate over this fundamental question has spanned the ages.Fairness versus Welfare poses a bold challenge to contemporary moral philosophy by showing that most moral principles conflict more sharply with welfare than is generally recognized. In particular, the authors demonstrate that all principles that are not based exclusively on welfare will sometimes favor policies under which literally everyone would be worse off. The book draws on the work of moral philosophers, economists, evolutionary and cognitive psychologists, and legal academics to scrutinize a number of particular subjects that have engaged legal scholars and moral philosophers.How can the deeply problematic nature of all nonwelfarist principles be reconciled with our moral instincts and intuitions that support them? The authors offer a fascinating explanation of the origins of our moral instincts and intuitions, developing ideas originally advanced by Hume and Sidgwick and more recently explored by psychologists and evolutionary theorists. Their analysis indicates that most moral principles that seem appealing, upon examination, have a functional explanation, one that does not justify their being accorded independent weight in the assessment of public policy.Fairness versus Welfare has profound implications for the theory and practice of policy analysis and has already generated considerable debate in academia.

Throughout the world, the rule against price fixing is competition law's most important and least controversial prohibition. Yet there is far less consensus than meets the eye on what constitutes price fixing, and prevalent understandings conflict with the teachings of oligopoly theory that supposedly underlie modern competition policy. Competition Policy and Price Fixing provides the needed analytical foundation. It offers a fresh, in-depth exploration of competition law's horizontal agreement requirement, presents a systematic analysis of how best to address the problem of coordinated oligopolistic price elevation, and compares the resulting direct approach to the orthodox prohibition. In doing so, Louis Kaplow elaborates the relevant benefits and costs of potential solutions, investigates how coordinated price elevation is best detected in light of the error costs associated with different types of proof, and examines appropriate sanctions. Existing literature devotes remarkably little attention to these key subjects and instead concerns itself with limiting penalties to certain sorts of interfirm communications.Challenging conventional wisdom, Kaplow shows how this circumscribed view is less well grounded in the statutes, principles, and precedents of competition law than is a more direct, functional proscription. More important, by comparison to the communications-based prohibition, he explains how the direct approach targets situations that involve both greater social harm and less risk of chilling desirable behavior--and is also easier to apply.