From the article: Spoiler: The evidence in the U.S. anti-trust cases leaves no doubt that there was price collusion and market manipulation by major egg producing companies. The U.S. Department of...
From the article:
When you see the cost of an everyday item — the kind you’re going to buy regardless of price — more than double in a year, do you get suspicious?
When it came to eggs, whose average price in a U.S. supermarket went from $1.93 per dozen in January 2022 to $4.82 a year later — and not even for the lovingly cared-for, cage-free variety — Americans had their choice of explanations. Some supply chain experts pointed to continued pandemic-era disruptions. The geopolitically minded cited impacts of war in agriculturally productive Ukraine, shrinking global supply while driving up fuel and feed costs. Republicans blamed the Democratic administration for wild spending that prompted widespread “Bidenflation.” Most Americans appeared content with the prevailing rationale they were given: Bird flu, an epidemic with a near-100% mortality rate, contributed to the death of 43 million egg-laying hens in 2022 alone while consumers continued to crave omelettes.
Peter Carstensen, a law school professor and fellow at the American Antitrust Institute, watched the prices of eggs rise from his Wisconsin home and suspected all those explanations were ignoring the potential for human villainy in a market where demand remains fixed. “Eggs are a classic example of where collusion makes an awful lot of sense,” said Carstensen. “I am going to have my two eggs and bacon every Wednesday, and on Saturday as well, regardless of the price of eggs.”
The suspicion of antitrust hawks like Carstensen — that producers were choosing to raise prices in tandem to increase profits rather than competing in a way that would drive prices down — was dismissed by mainstream economists and commentators as the work of cranks looking past simple economics for a true crime story that could exist only in their minds. Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle waved away “internet memes and a fair amount of conspiracizing,” as she put it, “about monopolistic egg producers colluding to raid the pockets of hard-working, egg-loving Americans.”
Spoiler: The evidence in the U.S. anti-trust cases leaves no doubt that there was price collusion and market manipulation by major egg producing companies. The U.S. Department of Justice has been very quiet about a slap-on-the-wrist proposed settlement. The economic narrative continues to foster the idea that there was only a short-term supply shock due to avian influenza.
From the article:
Spoiler: The evidence in the U.S. anti-trust cases leaves no doubt that there was price collusion and market manipulation by major egg producing companies. The U.S. Department of Justice has been very quiet about a slap-on-the-wrist proposed settlement. The economic narrative continues to foster the idea that there was only a short-term supply shock due to avian influenza.