The authors have developed a natural order for students to understand the antitrust field based upon a division of the practices challenged into two groups. One group of competing firms eliminate competition purely among themselves. The second group of firms seek to exclude actual or potential competitors. In selecting and editing cases, the authors have preserved a sense of the historical development and jurisprudential character of antitrust law. In citing lower-court cases and secondary materials, the authors have selected only material that casts significant illumination on the subject.
When it was first published a quarter of a century ago, Richard Posner's exposition and defense of an economic approach to antitrust law was a jeremiad against the intellectual disarray that then characterized the field. As other perspectives on antitrust law have fallen away, Posner's book has played a major role in transforming the field of antitrust law into a body of economically rational principles largely in accord with the ideas set forth in the first edition. Today's antitrust professionals may disagree on specific practices and rules, but most litigators, prosecutors, judges, and scholars agree that the primary goal of antitrust laws should be to promote economic welfare, and that economic theory should be used to determine how well business practices conform to that goal. In this thoroughly revised edition, Posner explains the economic approach to new generations of lawyers and students. He updates and amplifies his approach as it applies to the developments, both legal and economic, in the antitrust field since 1976. The "new economy," for example, has presented a host of difficult antitrust questions, and in an entirely new chapter, Posner explains how the economic approach can be applied to new industries such as software manufacturers, Internet service providers, and those that provide communications equipment and services. "The antitrust laws are here to stay," Posner writes, "and the practical question is how to administer them better-more rationally, more accurately, more expeditiously, more efficiently." This fully revised classic will continue to be the standard work in the field.
This edition of the book offers a comprehensive re-thinking of antitrust law, approaching competition problems in the market from a functional standpoint. The book has roots in prior editions, but it really offers a top-to-bottom reconsideration of how best to present modern issues in antitrust. After a brief introduction to the origins and objectives of antitrust law, the book launches the study of the field with a chapter on the concept of market power and the meaning of competition--building blocks that are essential to understanding everything else that follows in the course. It then devotes three chapters to the primary kinds of antitrust issues that arise from marketplace conduct: horizontal agreements among competitors, vertical distribution agreements, and exclusionary practices (whether done by a single firm or a group). Because of their importance to the economy, as well as to antitrust practice, mergers have their own chapter, which provides not only the important judicial opinions in this area, but also extensive materials from the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, the primary regulators of merger activity. The book then turns to two specialized issues that are of growing importance: the way in which U.S. antitrust laws operate in the global economy, and an innovative new chapter on intellectual property, technology, and platforms. It concludes with a chapter discussing the legal boundaries around the field of antitrust, including exemptions and immunities, and a chapter on the institutional framework for enforcement--the framework that translates words on a page into reality on the ground. The Seventh Edition retains and, where appropriate, adds to, the problems that have been a feature of this book for decades. To maximize instructor flexibility, the problems for each topic now appear at the end of the chapter.
The Fifth Edition continues to emphasize cases as the best way to teach antitrust law. The principal cases in this edition are the best and most current legal precedents. Judicial opinions are supplemented by historical and economic discussions and analyses. In particular, the notes discuss varying antitrust ideologies, confronting their defects and presenting their strengths. This new edition adds rich new material on: the transnational reach of the United States2 antitrust law; antitrust2s application to intellectual property; the Microsoft case and its history as it implicates monopolization, tying doctrine and market power analysis; expert testimony after Daubert and its relationship to antitrust summary judgment motions; and antitrust2s application in the field of regulated industries.
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.
Antitrust law regulates economic activity but differs in its operation from what is traditionally considered "regulation." Where regulation is often industry-specific and involves the direct setting of prices, product characteristics, or entry, antitrust law focuses more broadly on maintaining certain basic rules of competition. In these lectures Michael Whinston offers an accessible and lucid account of the economics behind antitrust law, looking at some of the most recent developments in antitrust economics and highlighting areas that require further research. He focuses on three areas: price fixing, in which competitors agree to restrict output or raise price; horizontal mergers, in which competitors agree to merge their operations; and exclusionary vertical contracts, in which a competitor seeks to exclude a rival. Antitrust commentators widely regard the prohibition on price fixing as the most settled and economically sound area of antitrust. Whinston's discussion seeks to unsettle this view, suggesting that some fundamental issues in this area are, in fact, not well understood. In his discussion of horizontal mergers, Whinston describes the substantial advances in recent theoretical and empirical work and suggests fruitful directions for further research. The complex area of exclusionary vertical contracts is perhaps the most controversial in antitrust. The influential "Chicago School" cast doubt on arguments that vertical contracts could be profitably used to exclude rivals. Recent theoretical work, to which Whinston has made important contributions, instead shows that such contracts can be profitable tools for exclusion. Whinston's discussion sheds light on the controversy in this area and the nature of those recent theoretical contributions. Sponsored by the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
This book focuses on the antitrust process and how that process affects the efficiency of antitrust law enforcement. The contributors share a wide range of experiences in the antitrust process, including academia, the legal environment, and both private and public sectors. The book deals first with merger activities, followed by non-merger enforcement initiatives and concludes with an examination of the future role of antitrust.
A substantially revised and updated new edition of the leading text on business and government, with new material reflecting recent theoretical and methodological advances; includes further coverage of the Microsoft antitrust case, the deregulation of telecommunications and electric power, and new environmental regulations. This new edition of the leading text on business and government focuses on the insights economic reasoning can provide in analyzing regulatory and antitrust issues. Departing from the traditional emphasis on institutions, Economics of Regulation and Antitrust asks how economic theory and empirical analyses can illuminate the character of market operation and the role for government action and brings new developments in theory and empirical methodology to bear on these questions. The fourth edition has been substantially revised and updated throughout, with new material added and extended discussion of many topics. Part I, on antitrust, has been given a major revision to reflect advances in economic theory and recent antitrust cases, including the case against Microsoft and the Supreme Court's Kodak decision. Part II, on economic regulation, updates its treatment of the restructuring and deregulation of the telecommunications and electric power industries, and includes an analysis of what went wrong in the California energy market in 2000 and 2001. Part III, on social regulation, now includes increased discussion of risk-risk analysis and extensive changes to its discussion of environmental regulation. The many case studies included provide students not only pertinent insights for today but also the economic tools to analyze the implications of regulations and antitrust policies in the future.The book is suitable for use in a wide range of courses in business, law, and public policy, for undergraduates as well at the graduate level. The structure of the book allows instructors to combine the chapters in various ways according to their needs. Presentation of more advanced material is self-contained. Each chapter concludes with questions and problems.
One might mistakenly think that the long tradition of economic analysis in antitrust law would mean there is little new to say. Yet the field is surprisingly dynamic and changing. The specially commissioned chapters in this landmark volume offer a rigorous analysis of the field's most current and contentious issues. Focusing on those areas of antitrust economics that are most in flux, leading scholars discuss topics such as: mergers that create unilateral effects or eliminate potential competition; whether market definition is necessary; tying, bundled discounts, and loyalty discounts; a new theory of predatory pricing; assessing vertical price-fixing after Leegin; proving horizontal agreements after Twombly; modern analysis of monopsony power; the economics of antitrust enforcement; international antitrust issues; antitrust in regulated industries; the antitrust-patent intersection; and modern methods for measuring antitrust damages. Students and scholars of law and economics, law practitioners, regulators, and economists with an interest in industrial organization and consulting will find this seminal Handbook an essential and informative resource.
