The Antitrust Paradox


Book Description

The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.




The Microsoft Case


Book Description

In 1998, the United States Department of Justice and state antitrust agencies charged that Microsoft was monopolizing the market for personal computer operating systems. More than ten years later, the case is still the defining antitrust litigation of our era. William H. Page and John E. Lopatka’s The Microsoft Case contributes to the debate over the future of antitrust policy by examining the implications of the litigation from the perspective of consumer welfare. The authors trace the development of the case from its conceptual origins through the trial and the key decisions on both liability and remedies. They argue that, at critical points, the legal system failed consumers by overrating government’s ability to influence outcomes in a dynamic market. This ambitious book is essential reading for business, law, and economics scholars as well as anyone else interested in the ways that technology, economics, and antitrust law have interacted in the digital age. “This book will become the gold standard for analysis of the monopolization cases against Microsoft. . . . No serious student of law or economic policy should go without reading it.”—Thomas C. Arthur, Emory University




The Causes and Consequences of Antitrust


Book Description

Why has antitrust legislation not lived up to its promise of promoting free-market competition and protecting consumers? Assessing 100 years of antitrust policy in the United States, this book shows that while the antitrust laws claim to serve the public good, they are as vulnerable to the influence of special interest groups as are agricultural, welfare, or health care policies. Presenting classic studies and new empirical research, the authors explain how antitrust caters to self-serving business interests at the expense of the consumer. The contributors are Peter Asch, George Bittlingmayer, Donald J. Boudreaux, Malcolm B. Coate, Louis De Alessi, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, B. Epsen Eckbo, Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Roger L. Faith, Richard S. Higgins, William E. Kovacic, Donald R. Leavens, William F. Long, Fred S. McChesney, Mike McDonald, Stephen Parker, Richard A. Posner, Paul H. Rubin, Richard Schramm, Joseph J. Seneca, William F. Shughart II, Jon Silverman, George J. Stigler, Robert D. Tollison, Charlie M. Weir, Peggy Wier, and Bruce Yandle.







The Antitrust Paradigm


Book Description

A new and urgently needed guide to making the American economy more competitive at a time when tech giants have amassed vast market power. The U.S. economy is growing less competitive. Large businesses increasingly profit by taking advantage of their customers and suppliers. These firms can also use sophisticated pricing algorithms and customer data to secure substantial and persistent advantages over smaller players. In our new Gilded Age, the likes of Google and Amazon fill the roles of Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. Jonathan Baker shows how business practices harming competition manage to go unchecked. The law has fallen behind technology, but that is not the only problem. Inspired by Robert Bork, Richard Posner, and the “Chicago school,” the Supreme Court has, since the Reagan years, steadily eroded the protections of antitrust. The Antitrust Paradigm demonstrates that Chicago-style reforms intended to unleash competitive enterprise have instead inflated market power, harming the welfare of workers and consumers, squelching innovation, and reducing overall economic growth. Baker identifies the errors in economic arguments for staying the course and advocates for a middle path between laissez-faire and forced deconcentration: the revival of pro-competitive economic regulation, of which antitrust has long been the backbone. Drawing on the latest in empirical and theoretical economics to defend the benefits of antitrust, Baker shows how enforcement and jurisprudence can be updated for the high-tech economy. His prescription is straightforward. The sooner courts and the antitrust enforcement agencies stop listening to the Chicago school and start paying attention to modern economics, the sooner Americans will reap the benefits of competition.




How Antitrust Failed Workers


Book Description

"Antitrust law has very rarely been used by workers to challenge anticompetitive employment practices. Yet recent empirical research shows that labor markets are highly concentrated, and that employers engage in practices that harm competition and suppress wages. These practices include no-poaching agreements, wage-fixing, mergers, covenants not to compete, and misclassification of gig workers as independent contractors. This failure of antitrust to challenge labor-market misbehavior is due to a range of other failures-intellectual, political, moral, and economic. And the impact of this failure has been profound for wage levels, economic growth, and inequality. In light of the recent empirical work, it is urgent for regulators, courts, lawyers, and Congress to redirect antitrust resources to labor market problems. This book offers a strategy for judicial and legislative reform"--




Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies


Book Description

A comprehensive analysis of merger outcomes based on all empirical studies, with an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust policy toward mergers. In recent decades, antitrust investigations and cases targeting mergers—including those involving Google, Ticketmaster, and much of the domestic airline industry—have reshaped industries and changed business practices profoundly. And yet there has been a relative dearth of detailed evaluations of the effects of mergers and the effectiveness of merger policy. In this book, John Kwoka, a noted authority on industrial organization, examines all reliable empirical studies of the effect of specific mergers and develops entirely new information about the policies and remedies of antitrust agencies regarding these mergers. Combined with data on outcomes, this policy information enables analysis of, and creates new insights into, mergers, merger policies, and the effectiveness of remedies in preventing anticompetitive outcomes. After an overview of mergers, merger policy, and a common approach to merger analysis, Kwoka offers a detailed analysis of the studied mergers, relevant policies, and chosen remedies. Kwoka finds, first and foremost, that most of the studied mergers resulted in competitive harm, usually in the form of higher product prices but also with respect to various non-price outcomes. Other important findings include the fact that joint ventures and code sharing arrangements do not result in such harm and that policies intended to remedy mergers—especially conduct remedies—are not generally effective in restraining price increases. The book's uniquely comprehensive analysis advances our understanding of merger decisions and policies, suggests policy improvements for competition agencies and remedies, and points the way to future research.




Econometrics


Book Description

"The economic expert has become a central figure in virtually every antitrust litigation or merger matter, and the importance of econometrics has increased significantly. A basic understanding of econometric principles has now become almost essential to the serious antitrust practitioner. This volume is designed to introduce lawyers to the theoretical and practical issues of econometrics, providing necessary tools for working effectively with economic experts on both sides of a matter." -- from the Foreword, p. xv.




Antitrust and the Bounds of Power


Book Description

Since it first came into existence, antitrust law has become progressively more technical both in its form and in its manner of enforcement. Yet technicalities and doctrines give covert and not neutral solutions to a crucial dilemma which is of fundamental importance: how much private power is needed to preserve economic freedom from the intrusion of public power, and how much public power is needed to prevent private power becoming a threat to the freedom of others? In this lucidly written and challenging book, Giuliano Amato draws on his wide experience to examine the character of this dilemma and the way in which it has been addressed by legislatures and courts in the US and in Europe. His observations on the history and the doctrines of antitrust law and his conclusions as to how successfully the dilemma is being managed by the super economies of Europe and the US challenge conventional thinking. They will also stimulate economists and lawyers as well as business and lay people to consider more closely the future of antitrust laws across the globe.




Competition Law and Consumer Protection


Book Description

The assumption that competition law and consumer protection are mutually reinforcing is rarely challenged. The theory seems uncontroversial. However, because a positive interaction between the two is presumed to be self-evident, the frequent conflicts that do in fact arise are often dealt with on an ad hoc basis, with no overarching legal authority. There is a clear need for a detailed and coherent understanding of exactly where the complements and tensions between the two policy areas exist. Dr Cseres in-depth analysis provides that understanding. Proceeding from the dual perspective of law and economics that is, of justice, fairness, and reasonableness on the one hand, and of efficiency of the other she fully considers such underlying issues as the following: the role of competition law and consumer law in a free market economy;the notion of consumer welfare;the effect of the modernisation of EC competition law for consumers;economics theories of information, bounded rationality, and transaction costs;the special significance of vertical agreements and merger control; and,how consumers are affected by information asymmetries. The ultimate focus of the book is on current and emerging EC law, in which a rapprochement between the two areas seems to be under way. Dr. Cseres provides a knowledgeable guide to the various strands of theory, policy, and jurisprudence that (she shows) ought to be taken into account in the process, including schools of thought and law and policy experience in both Europe and the United States. A special chapter on Hungary, where post-1989 law and practice reveal a fresh and distinctly forward-looking understanding of the matter, is one of the book's most extraordinary features. Competition Law and Consumer Protection stands alone as a committed contribution to bridging a gap in legal knowledge the significance of which grows daily. It will be of immeasurable value to a wide range of professionals from academics and researchers to officials, policymakers, and practitioners in competition law, consumer protection advocacy, economic theory and planning, business administration, and various pertinent government authorities.