What happens when electric utility monopolies pursue their acquisition interests—undisciplined by competition, and insufficiently disciplined by the regulators responsible for replicating competition? Since the mid-1980s, mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities have halved the number of local, independent utilities. Mostly debt-financed, these transactions have converted retiree-suitable investments into subsidiaries of geographically scattered conglomerates. Written by one of the U.S.’s leading regulatory thinkers, this book combines legal, accounting, economic and financial analysis of the 30-year march of U.S. electricity mergers with insights from the dynamic field of behavioral economics.
American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on competition. Thomas Philippon blames the unchecked efforts of corporate lobbyists. Instead of earning profits by investing and innovating, powerful firms use political pressure to secure their advantages. The result is less efficient markets, leading to higher prices and lower wages.
Does seller concentration in a market raise prices? Many attempts have been made to test this classic hypothesis of oligopoly theory, none of them convincing. Leonard Weiss and his colleagues have devised and applied a systematic set of direct tests of the concentration price hypothesis. In an innovative series of empirical studies, they examine the effect of concentration on price for the same item sold in markets that vary because of space, time, or transaction. They conclude that concentration does indeed tend to raise price. Studies in the book's first part test specific aspects of the concentration price hypothesis. These include a case study of Portland cement deregulated fares, the relation between change in price and change in concentration in the US and in the EEC, the effect of the numbers of bidders in auctions, and the effects of concentration on wages. The book's second part brings together for the first time previously published and widely scattered studies of the concentration price relationship in advertising media, retailing, the railroads, livestock purchasing, and banking. Viewed together, they provide powerful support for the role of concentration in determining price. Leonard W. Weiss is Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.P>
This is an important and timely contribution from a prominent antitrust economist and policy advisor. It has been many decades since questions about antitrust enforcement have been so prominent in political, economic, and scholarly debate. Mergers in countless industries, rising concentration throughout the economy, and the dominance of tech giants have brought renewed attention to the role and the responsibility of antitrust policy.
How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark is about the rise and recent fall of American antitrust. It is a collection of 15 essays, almost all expressing a deep concern that conservative economic analysis is leading judges and enforcement officials toward an approach that will ultimately harm consumer welfare. For the past 40 years or so, U.S. antitrust has been dominated intellectually by an unusually conservative style of economic analysis. Its advocates, often referred to as "The Chicago School," argue that the free market (better than any unelected band of regulators) can do a better job of achieving efficiency and encouraging innovation than intrusive regulation. The cutting edge of Chicago School doctrine originated in academia and was popularized in books by brilliant and innovative law professors like Robert Bork and Richard Posner. Oddly, a response to that kind of conservative doctrine may be put together through collections of scores of articles but until now cannot be found in any one book. This collection of essays is designed in part to remedy that situation. The chapters in this book were written by academics, former law enforcers, private sector defense lawyers, Republicans and Democrats, representatives of the left, right and center. Virtually all agree that antitrust enforcement today is better as a result of conservative analysis, but virtually all also agree that there have been examples of extreme interpretations and misinterpretations of conservative economic theory that have led American antitrust in the wrong direction. The problem is not with conservative economic analysis but with those portions of that analysis that have "overshot the mark" producing an enforcement approach that is exceptionally generous to the private sector. If the scores of practices that traditionally have been regarded as anticompetitive are ignored, or not subjected to vigorous enforcement, prices will be higher, quality of products lower, and innovation diminished. In the end consumers will pay.
