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primarysrc t1_j2s8u9j wrote

So.. are people commenting here actually able to access and read the journal article? I'm kind of confused as to how any sort of informed conversation/comment can occur without it. Or are people just reading the post title and abstract and going with whatever prior knowledge/biases they have to agree (or disagree) with this? If so, seems kind of suspect for subreddit called science.

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dilletaunty t1_j2sn9xx wrote

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24700/w24700.pdf

Almost certainly the latter. But in case you wanted to read the article I googled the title of the article and got this working paper from 2018. Same abstract. This works like half the time for me, when it doesn’t work it’s usually some article posted by an actual university laboratory posted to Nature or something. Economic/social articles and ones made by think tank-ish orgs usually leak out through other channels.

Have fun!

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primarysrc t1_j2stz08 wrote

I appreciate the article link and will try to read it. It's pretty dense and long but does have some data and models it uses to make its claims. The difference between the level of discourse in the paper vs what is being discussed in these comments is stark.

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ConfidenceFairy t1_j2u2vwq wrote

The main point is political economics.

EU did not decide to create competitive and well regulated market regulators. There was no political desire to do so. Local companies and workers lobbied their governments against competition as always. But when only way to protect companies in your own country was to create fair game for everyone, it had to be done. Distrust and self interest forced EU to it.

Philippon (one of the authors) have written a great book: "The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets" Belknap Press, 2019. that looks the other side of the pond.

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primarysrc t1_j2u7ppk wrote

From what I've read in the paper and your comment I can see how the incentives and game theory involved would result in a stronger intra-country regulator (EU) that promotes competition and antitrust regulation better than individual national regulators. (Although it's not clear to me how such a regulator would naturally emerge since it would require the voluntary relinquishing of power from the prior political/economic actors. I haven't followed recent European development so there could be some reasonable logic/history for it, though.)

That said, I'm not sure there is much in terms of normative recommendations for the US. It's not like the US will be forming some economic pact with North American or Western nations and creating some ultra EU-like entity. For the US, regulations come with the ebb and flow of political parties or as a response to big market disruptions/crashes.

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Diligent_Gas_3167 t1_j2wdjtu wrote

Nearly no one in this sub will actively read any article, mostly because most people do not have access to paywalled journals (and even if they do, they don't remember how to use their university's access) and also because that is just how people are in this website. Making assumptions based on headlines is the redditor special.

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