My colleague Randy Picker died suddenly last week and I still can’t believe it. The book he was working on for most of the time I knew him (“The Quest For Next”) should be coming out in due course. In the meantime, he left behind a lot of other things to read — cold comfort though they may be to those of us who will miss him at the lunch table.
A few favorites:
When Cities Go Broke: A Conceptual Introduction to Municipal Bankruptcy, with Michael McConnell. Still one of the first things I turn to on this topic.
An Introduction to Game Theory and the Law, which of course blossomed into the famous book with Baird and Gertner, which is in turn the subject of one of my favorite strangest academic book reviews.
Simple Games in a Complex World: A Generative Approach to the Adoption of Norms and the related piece SimLaw 2011.
And a personal favorite: The Razors-and-Blades Myths. Since this was published in 2011, I don’t think it’s possible it is the first thing I read by Randy. But it’s one of my formative memories of him.
You can also go read all of his 2025 antitrust slides here.
We miss you Randy.
