Aaron Edlin specializes in antitrust economics and antitrust law, and is the co-founder of the Berkeley Electronic Press. He holds the Richard Jennings Chair and professorships in both the economics department and law school at UC Berkeley and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served on the Obama campaign’s competition policy committee, and as Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton White House covering industrial organization, regulation and antitrust. He is co-author with P. Areeda & L. Kaplow of one of the leading casebooks on antitrust; he has also published many articles on industrial organization, competition policy, antitrust law, and a variety of other issues in economics, law and public policy in leading journals including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Harvard Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. He has been a visiting professor or researcher at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown. He received tenure at UC Berkeley, 1997, his Ph.D. and J.D. from Stanford, 1993; AB Summa Cum Laude from Princeton, 1988.
Antitrust, Industrial Organization, and Competition Policy
2011 Professor's Update to Antitrust Analysis, Problems, Text, and Cases (with Philip Areeda and Louis Kaplow) (2011)
Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process (with Joseph Farrell) (2010)
Although antitrust courts sometimes stress the competitive process, they have not deeply explored what that...
Proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Economists’ Comment (with Michael R. Baye, Richard J. Gilbert, Jerry A. Hausman, Daniel L. Rubinfeld, Steven C. Salop, Richard L. Schmalensee, and Joshua D. Wright) (2010)
Predatory Pricing, Research Handbook on Economics of Antitrust (2010)
Judge Breyer famously worried that aggressive prohibitions of predatory pricing throw away a bird in...
Contract Law and Contract Theory
The American Airlines Case: A Chance to Clarify Predation Policy (with Joseph Farrell), The Antitrust Revolution: Economics, Competition, and Policy (2004)
Optimal Penalties in Contracts (with Alan Schwartz), Chicago-Kent Law Review (2003)
Reviews the literature on breach of contract and contract penalties and presents in a coherent...
Implementing the First Best in an Agency Relationship with Renegotiation: A Corrigendum (with Benjamin Hermalin), Econometrica (2001)
The proof in Proposition 4 in Hermalin and Katz (1991) is incorrect because it fails...
Contract Renegotiation and Options in Agency Problems (with Benjamin E. Hermalin), Journal of Law, Economics and Organization (2000)
This article discusses the ability of an agent and a principal to achieve the first-best...
Market-based Transfer Prices and Intracompany Discounts (with Tim Baldenius and Stefan Reichelstein) (1999)
Economic Theory
Academic Testimony on Unilateral Conduct before the U.S. Dept. of Justice & Federal Trade Commission Hearings, U.S. DOJ, Antitrust Division, FTC, Academic Hearings Transcripts (2007)
Mixed Equilibria are Unstable in Games of Strategic Complements (with Federico Echenique), Journal of Economic Theory (2004)
In games with strict strategic complementaries, properly mixed Nash equilibria - equilibria that are not...
Forward Discount Bias, Nalebuff's Envelope Puzzle, and the Siegel Paradox in Foreign Exchange, Topics in Theoretical Economics (2002)
The bias of forward exchange rates as a predictor of future spot rates is typically...
Auto Insurance and Auto Accidents
Externalities and Pay as You Drive Auto Insurance, California Department of Insurance Workshop on Pay-As-You-Drive Auto Insurance (2008)
Externalities from Auto Accidents and Auto Driving justify mandates of Pay-As-You-Drive Auto Insurance.
If Voters Won't Go for Taxing Oil to Conserve Energy, How Do We Do It?, The Economists' Voice (2006)
Proposition 87 reemphasized that Americans don't want the cost of driving to increase: Aaron Edlin...
The Accident Externality from Driving (with Pinar Karaca Mandic), Journal of Political Economy (2006)
We estimate auto accident externalities (more specifically insurance externalities) using panel data on state-average insurance...
Per-Mile Premiums for Auto Insurance, Economics for an Imperfect World: Essays In Honor of Joseph Stiglitz (2003)
How a New Auto Insurance Law Could Ease Our Dependence on Oil, by Giving Drivers a Choice, FindLaw (2002)
Law and Economics
Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process (with Joseph Farrell) (2010)
Although antitrust courts sometimes stress the competitive process, they have not deeply explored what that...
Proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Economists’ Comment (with Michael R. Baye, Richard J. Gilbert, Jerry A. Hausman, Daniel L. Rubinfeld, Steven C. Salop, Richard L. Schmalensee, and Joshua D. Wright) (2010)
Can Immigrants Solve Our Health Care Problems? (with Dana Goldman), New York Times (2010)
If 30 million more people get health insurance, who will take care of them? Unless...
Predatory Pricing, Research Handbook on Economics of Antitrust (2010)
Judge Breyer famously worried that aggressive prohibitions of predatory pricing throw away a bird in...
International Economics
The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take on Today’s Issues (with J. Bradford Delong and Joseph Stiglitz) (2008)
Forward Discount Bias, Nalebuff's Envelope Puzzle, and the Siegel Paradox in Foreign Exchange, Topics in Theoretical Economics (2002)
The bias of forward exchange rates as a predictor of future spot rates is typically...
Public Finance/Public Economies
Don't Tax the Rich, Tax Inequality, New York Times (2011)
A Brandeis tax can stop inequality in its tracks.
Can Immigrants Solve Our Health Care Problems? (with Dana Goldman), New York Times (2010)
If 30 million more people get health insurance, who will take care of them? Unless...
UC System: Layoffs, not Pay Cuts, Los Angeles Times (2009)
Should a firm that hits tough times cut salaries or jobs?
Dr. StrangeLoan: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Financial Collapse, The Economists' Voice (2009)
Last week, on Wednesday September 17, 2008, the Bush Administration almost stumbled upon a way...
Torts
If Voters Won't Go for Taxing Oil to Conserve Energy, How Do We Do It?, The Economists' Voice (2006)
Proposition 87 reemphasized that Americans don't want the cost of driving to increase: Aaron Edlin...
The Accident Externality from Driving (with Pinar Karaca Mandic), Journal of Political Economy (2006)
We estimate auto accident externalities (more specifically insurance externalities) using panel data on state-average insurance...
Per-Mile Premiums for Auto Insurance, Economics for an Imperfect World: Essays In Honor of Joseph Stiglitz (2003)
The New Palgrave: Surveying Two Waves of Economic Analysis of Law, American Law and Economics Review (2000)
Op-Eds
Don't Tax the Rich, Tax Inequality, New York Times (2011)
A Brandeis tax can stop inequality in its tracks.