Thursday, December 30, 2010

Concurring Opinions » The Illusion of Free Pharmaceutical Markets

The title alone is enough to make me like the book. But as Frank Pasquale explains, there's a lot more to like.

Over the break, I have been reading Bernard Harcourt’s extraordinarily illuminating The Illusion of Free Markets. I believe Harcourt’s “archeology of regulation” convincingly shows that when “layers of legal entitlements, technical rules, and criminal prohibitions are exposed, it is clear that the notion of natural order or market efficiency is pure fiction” (196). What John Quiggin accomplishes in an economic idiom, Harcourt achieves via legal, historical, and philosophical analysis. You’ll never view commodity trading (or much of the rest of our economic landscape) the same way after you’ve read his brilliant book.
Concurring Opinions » The Illusion of Free Pharmaceutical Markets

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