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.

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.

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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.