Wall Street Journal, Oct 29, 2022

choi

(1) James R Hagerty, Bobby Willig 1947-2022; Professor sorted out economics of merger. at page A13 (in the column Obituary every Saturday).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bob ... -policy-11666967159

My comment:
(a) The print title is kind of misleading: This professor did not analyze benefits of corporate merger for the actors (companies acquiring and to be acquired). Rather his expertise was whether the merger harms consumers. In this sense, the online title (from WSJ) as well as subtitle is closer to the reality: Bobby Willig Applied Economics to Antitrust Policy; Princeton economist, who has died at age 75, wrote US merger guidelines and made an early mark in pinball.
(b)
(i) Princeton University on Willig:
(A) Robert Daniel Willig. Dean of the Faculty, Princeton University, 2016 (reproduced from "Princeton University Honors Faculty Members Receiving Emeritus Status. Princeton Univ, May 2016, pp 55-56).
https://dof.princeton.edu/about/ ... obert-daniel-willig
("Bobby's most cited work is his seminal 1982 book, Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure (Harcourt College Publishers, with William Baumol and John Panzar), which analyzes determinants of prices and structure in economic markets. The book considers situations under which firms might behave competitively even though they operate in a highly concentrated industry. The book's key insight is that the potential for future firms entering the market disciplines and limits the market power of incumbent firms. This idea of 'contestable' markets introduced a simple but powerful logic arising from a dynamic model into the then-standard static models of industry structure. The insight has had a lasting impact on the field")
(B) Amaney A Jamal (a Muslim woman; SPIA dean), Robert 'Bobby' Willig Tribute. School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton Univ, undated
https://spia.princeton.edu/blogs/robert-bobby-willig-tribute
("Bobby joined the School’s faculty, joint with the Economics Department in 1978.  Over the next 38 years until he transferred to Emeritus status in 2016, Bobby taught microeconomics to more than 1200 MPA [master's in Public Administration] students.  He continued to teach his signature course 'Legal and Regulatory Policy towards Markets' for another five years, through the spring term 2021")

There is no need to read the rest of (b)(i)(B).
(ii) William J Baumol, John C Panzar and Robert D Willig, Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure. Harcourt College Publishers, 1982
has no pirated copy in the Web. However, an article archived in Kevin Wainwright's course Economics 400 in Simon Fraser University (1965- ; public; main campus: outside Vancouver; named after a fur trader)
William J Baumol, Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure.
https://www.sfu.ca/~wainwrig/Econ400/Baumol-contestableMkts.pdf
, which is replete with math.


(2) Jason Douglas and Stella Yifan Xie, What Comes After 'Made in China;' An American who operates six factories in China says customers want him to make goods elsewhere due to supply-chain issues, trade tensions and Covid-19 lockdowns. But shifting production is difficult. at page B5 (session B is Business on weekdays and Exchange on Saturdays, on the same topics).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/an- ... 4?mod=hp_major_pos1

Excerpt in the window of print: 'We've built this supply chain for 30 years to work like a Swiss clock. There's * * * nothing like it.'

Quote:

"Investment by American companies in China was already slowing before the pandemic. U.S. firms invested $13 billion there in 2019, down from a 2012 high point of $15.4 billion, according to data compiled by research group Rhodium Group. Investment then sank to just $8.4 billion last year.

China's "share of US imports has shrunk in recent years, mostly as a result of tariffs, but it remains significant. The value of goods taken in from China was 17% of all US imports over the first eight months of this year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That was a larger percentage than any other country even though it fell from 22% in 2017, the year before the Trump administration imposed duties on a range of Chinese goods.

Note:
(a) Regarding the fifth paragraph from the bottom. The online version is: "Decoupling from China 'is going to happen in dribs and drabs. And it's going to increase over time. But it isn't going to be easy.' " That is a statement from Mr Rothman, without real attribution. In print: " 'It isn't going to be easy,' he says."
(b) "grill maker Weber Inc * * * [The Jewish Jacob Rothman's] commitment to the country [China] deepened when he became partners with Chen Jingqiu, a Chinese man who had served as a vendor to his [Rothman's] family's business. Mr Chen was the initial founder of Velong Enterprises [Co, Ltd 汇隆工业 (or 实业)有限公司 (which was founded in Yangjiang, Guangdong 广东省阳江市 and remains there); privately held 私人持股] in 2003 with Cao Yushu, the businesswoman who would become Mr Rothman's wife. Mr Chen was located in the southern coastal city of Yangjiang."
(i) German-English dictionary:
* roth (adj): "obsolete spelling of rot red"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/roth
   ^ The Modern English adjective red (Old English: read) and Modern German adjective rot came from the same Proto-West Germanic *raud.
(ii) Jacob Rothman does not have a Chinese name.
(c) The report carries two illustrations of statistics:
(i) heading: "Share of US Import from China  
Note: 2022 data as of August.
Source: US Census Bureau via CEIC" (The last line is missing from the scan.)
(ii) heading: US Foreign Direct Investment in China.


(3) Malcolm Forbes, Siblings of Sensibility. Maria was a workhorse, Jane a perfectionist. Between them they wrote 26 books and pioneered the historical novel. at page C11 (every Saturday, section C is "Review")/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sis ... ibility-11666889486
(book review on Devoney Looser, Sister Novelists; The trailblazing Porter sisters, who paved the way for Austen and the Brontës. Bloomsbury, 2022)

the first three paragraphs:

"In her 1929 essay 'Women and Fiction,' Virginia Woolf declared that in the 19th century 'a woman lived almost solely in her home and her emotions.' Male novelists could derive inspiration from first-hand experience of war, seafaring, politics and business. Female writers worked from more circumscribed worlds. Novels such as 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Wuthering Heights,' Woolf argued, 'were written by women from whom was forcibly withheld all experience save that which could be met with in a middle-class drawing-room.' Such restrictions required extraordinary compensatory powers of observation and imagination from authors like Jane Austen and Emily Brontë.

Two lesser-known writers who were exact contemporaries of Austen, sisters Jane (1775-1850) and Anna Maria Porter (1778-1832), had those talents in abundance. Practitioners of historical fiction, their novels were also products of extensive research and became widely selling books that garnered their creators critical acclaim and international renown. Jane was more famous, Maria (as she was called) was more prolific. Between them, they published 26 books and founded and contributed to literary journals. However, after their deaths their work fell out of favor: Today, their books languish out of print, their names reduced to literary footnotes.

"Devoney Looser [a white woman with an odd name], an Austen biographer and professor of English at Arizona State University, has made a significant step toward rescuing these Regency writers from obscurity. "Sister Novelists" is the first biography of the Misses Porter, one that brilliantly if belatedly gives both women their due. Ms Looser charts their eventful lives and along the way makes the claim that the pair were among the most important fiction writers of the 19th century-- primarily because they were the true pioneers of the historical novels.

Note:
(a)
(i)
(A) "Malcolm Forbes is a freelance writer based in Edinburgh." from the Web. So this Malcolm Forbes is not the former publisher (1919-1990) of Forbes magazine, founded by his father BC Forbes.
(B) The Scottish surname Forbes is place "name from Forbes in Tullynessle Aberdeenshire so named from Gaelic forba field district + the locative suffix -ais. The placename is pronounced in two syllables with the stress on the second and the surname until recently reflected this. Today however it is generally a monosyllable."
(ii) There is no need to read the rest (at east for me, who is not interested in fictions).
(b) Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941; born Adeline Virginia Stephen, married Leonard Woolf in 1912; suffered depressions and committed suicide by drowning)
(c)
(i) Published in 1847, "Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English." en.wikipedia.org for "Wuthering Heights."
(ii) Wuthering Heights (fictional location)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights_(fictional_location)
(iii) wuther
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wuther

--------------------------------------Willig (WSJ)
Bobby Willig was always eager to solve puzzles, particularly if they involved math and public policy. He found a suitable occupation: economics professor and and consultant on the competitive effects of merger.

Dr Willig taught at Princeton University for 43 years and in 2003 co0founded what is now Compass Lexecon, which employs nearly 200 PhD-level economists and advises clients on antitrust and other regulatory matters. As a senior Justice Department official from 1989 to 2001, he led a team producing new guidelines for assessing whether proposed mergers should be allowed.  

His most influential work including research defining what kind of markets are "contestable," or open to new competitors if incumbents raise prices excessively or provide poor service. The helped persuade antitrust enforcers that they needn't fret about a market dominated by a few firms, so long as those players couldn't shot out new rivals. He also developed ways to determine appropriate prices for access to such things as telecom networks.

He described his work as "solving reality puzzles." Able to bill clients $1,500 or more an hour, Dr Willig had a keen sense of the value of his time. That was his excuse for for routinely parking illegally near his Princeton office. The fines were a cost of doing business.

Dr Willig died Oct 21 of anaplastic thyroid cancer. He was 75.