Didn't Richard Schmalensee of MIT testify for Microsoft to the effect that the positive "network effects" of many users sharing the same software made it in the public interest not to break up the company? As I recall, this came in the penalty phase of the trial AFTER MS had already been adjudged guilty of violating the anti trust law, and despite some 30,000 citizen letters pleading that the company be broken up in service of the public interest. (There were some other egregious aspects of the affair -- including events that led reasonable people to believe that part of the deal, made shortly after 911, was to allow the DOJ a back door into Windows computers.)
Don't know of any compensation that he received. Peter Hollings PS: I'm an alum; but that made me all the more pissed off when it happened. -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 12:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [PEN-L] query: economist as hired gun what's a good example of an economist -- preferably a well-known one -- receiving a big fee for doing special pleading for some big corporation or similar organization? -- Jim Devine / "In the years since the phrase became a cliché, I have received any number of compliments for my supposed ability to 'think outside the box.' Actually, it has been a struggle for me to perceive just what these 'boxes' were why they were there, why other people regarded them as important, where their borderlines might be, how to live safely within and without them." -- Tim Page (THE NEW YORKER, August 20, 2007).
