Call for Papers - Symposium on Monopsony Power and Labor Market Concentration

The Antitrust Bulletin will publish as special symposium on monopsony, buyer power, and labor market concentration, scheduled for Issue # 2 of 2019. I proposed the idea to the journal and the editors agreed, provided that I reprise my role as guest editor. The last issue of which I was the editor, the first issue of 2017, titled, "Symposium: Amateurism and Antitrust: Economic and Legal Perspectives on the Antitrust Issues Facing the NCAA's Collegiate Model" generated excellent papers from authors including Roger Blair (Univ. of Florida), Rodney Fort (Univ. of Michigan), Jayma Meyer (Univ. of Indiana), Matt Mitten (Marquette Law), Rich Sheehan (Notre Dame), and others.  (I hope the authors I did not mention take no offense, as I am equally grateful to all of them for their contributions to the symposium.)

I am excited for this upcoming symposium and hopeful that it will generate the same enthusiasm among prospective authors.  The role of monopsony power and labor market concentration has gained increasing research attention as of late, with one question being whether wage-depressing effects result from buyer power in labor markets.  The President's Council of Economic Advisers October 2016 Issue Brief discussed this point in some detail. For recent work on this topic, see e.g., Azar, Marinescu, & Stinebaum, 2017.  This issue, of course, is front and center in the ongoing NCAA Grant-in-Aid litigation, the outcome of which may shape the future of collegiate sports in the United States.

Another question, particularly for legal scholars and antitrust economists, is whether the Sherman Antitrust Act has anything to say on this matter. Is the Act's focus solely on seller power rather than buyer power? Should it be?  (For a sample discussion of this issue, see Marius Schwartz' 2004 comments to the FTC/DOJ merger enforcement workshop.)

As such, I reiterate my hope that this issue will spark the interests of prospective authors. I should mention that this is an interdisciplinary issue. Articles from legal scholars, antitrust economists, labor economists, and other disciplines are welcome, provided the key issue discussed deals with competition and antitrust (and, in particular, buyer power, labor market concentration, monopsony power, and factors that could affect those issues), given this journal's focus.  As with the previous symposium on NCAA amateurism, differing points of view and research findings are expected and warmly welcomed.  However, I would like to stress that the Antitrust Bulletin is a peer-reviewed journal.  Authors with existing or potential conflicts of interest are expected and required to mention them upon submission of the abstract or paper idea/title.

Now on to the details:

Paper deadline: 12/31/2018. 
If this deadline is too aggressive, please let me know and we can work around time constraints. We do not want valuable contributions to be excluded on this criterion.  However, to the extent that this deadline can be met, it is greatly appreciated. Papers then have to go through review, copy editing, etc.

Footnoting: Let me apologize in advance here. Yes, the Antitrust Bulletin uses the Bluebook citation standard.  This is not my requirement, but the journal's. Do I hate it? Yes. Do we have to use it? Also yes.  So, for authors primarily of economic journal papers, this means that we use no endnotes.  All citations are in footnotes using the Bluebook format. If you need details on this, I will happily provide them.

Style:
A few stylistic notes:
1.       Please include a brief abstract.
2.       Please add four or five key words following the abstract.
3.       Author credentials should be in an asterisk footnote.
4.       Please use type face 12 throughout, including footnotes, which should also be double spaced.

There are no length limitations, though authors may want to consider placing more technical discussions as appendices to the article.

Also, an important note, particularly for those using machine learning and/or complex econometric techniques: Please keep the journal's audience in mind. My hope is that this issue will provide a bridge between disciplines to gain a greater understanding of the role of monopsonies in competition and whether existing legal statutes address any potential dangers labor market concentration may pose.  As such, legal scholars may not be familiar with the econometrics vernacular, nor economists with certain legal concepts. While authors may find it occasionally cumbersome to explain such concepts and techniques to the uninitiated, please know that not doing so may result in an otherwise brilliant paper being "lost in translation" and not reaching a potentially receptive audience.

Peer Review:

The Antitrust Bulletin's editor is William J. Curran III.  The economics editor is Mark Glick.  Click here for more information on the journal's editorial board. As the guest editor of this issue, I hope to repeat a similar peer review process used in past issues.  That is, each author will anonymously review two other authors' papers. Our editorial team will also review the papers and provide comments.

Contact:

For any questions or comments (and, of course, commitments to contribute a paper!), please feel free to contact me at ttatos@eaecon.com.  For those who use Twitter, you can also direct message me at @TedTatos.