Book Description

This collection of original essays by economists and lawyers addresses important aspects of antitrust and regulation, such as the U.S. government's merger guidelines, antitrust in regulated industries, the connection between profitability and market share, and the question of what constitutes anticompetitive behavior. The book combines economic and legal analysis to inform policymaking with theory as well as the lessons of experience in the petroleum, electric power, computer, retail food, and telecommunications industries. Antitrust and Regulationopens with John McGowan's previously unpublished background paper, "Mergers for Power or Progress," for the merger guidelines taskforce which recommended the rules adopted by the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department in 1982. This is followed by "Competition and Antitrust in the Petroleum Industry: An Application of the Merger Guidelines," by George A. Hay and Robert J. Reynolds; "Anticompetitive Mergers: Prevention and Cure," by William J. Kolasky, Jr., Philip A. Proger, and Roy T Englert, Jr.; "Industrial Markets: Another Look at the SIC Approach," by James W McKie; "Profitability and Market Share," by Morris A. Adelman and Bruce E. Stangle; "Non-Price Anticompetitive Behavior by Dominant Firms Toward the Producers of Complementary Products," by J. A. Ordover, A. O. Sykes, and R. D. Willig; "Market Conduct: When is it Anticompetitive?" by Robin C. Landis and Ronald S. Rolfe; "Can Exclusive Franchises Be Bad?" by F. M. Fisher; "Mixing Regulatory and Antitrust Policies in the Electric Power Industry: The Price Squeeze and Retail Market Competition," by Paul L. Joskow; "Preferences of Policy Makers for Alternative Allocations of the Broadcast Spectrum," by Forrest Nelson and Roger Noll; "The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules in Network Television: Regulatory Fantasy and Reality," by F. M. Fisher; and "Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul: More on Departures of Price from Marginal Cost," by Almarin Phillips and Gary L. Roberts. Franklin M. Fisher is Professor of Economics at MIT. He is a coauthor with John McGowan and Joen Greenwood of Folded, Spindled, and Mutilated: Economic Analysis and U.S. v IBM, an MIT Press paperback.