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.

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 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 rise of so-called “safe harbors” - conditions that, when satisfied, trigger a presumption of legality - is among the most prominent features of the evolution of antitrust law in the modern era. The emergence of antitrust safe harbors occurred quickly and is attributable to significant contributions from the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the federal antitrust agencies. The recent and ongoing weakening and disappearance of safe harbors from the antitrust landscape has been less well recognized. We explain the causes and consequences of the rise and fall of antitrust safe harbors. We argue that the disappearance of safe harbors is not explained by reversals in any of the factors - a shift in economic analysis of legal rules, economic theory, empirical evidence, or the influence of particular judicial appointments - that led to the original rise in safe harbors. Preliminary evidence suggests that other forces are at work, including but not limited to, changes over time in both partisanship and preferences for standards over rules at the FTC. If we are correct that the current and ongoing shift away from safe harbors at the agencies and in the courts is the result of systematic changes, understanding its causes will be critical to identifying its implications for agencies, courts, and practitioners moving forward.

Why do smokers claim that the first cigarette of the day is the best? What is the biological basis behind some heavy drinkers' belief that the "hair-of-the-dog" method alleviates the effects of a hangover? Why does marijuana seem to affect ones problem-solving capacity? Intoxicating Minds is, in the author's words, "a grand excavation of drug myth." Neither extolling nor condemning drug use, it is a story of scientific and artistic achievement, war and greed, empires and religions, and lessons for the future. Ciaran Regan looks at each class of drugs, describing the historical evolution of their use, explaining how they work within the brain's neurophysiology, and outlining the basic pharmacology of those substances. From a consideration of the effect of stimulants, such as caffeine and nicotine, and the reasons and consequences of their sudden popularity in the seventeenth century, the book moves to a discussion of more modern stimulants, such as cocaine and ecstasy. In addition, Regan explains how we process memory, the nature of thought disorders, and therapies for treating depression and schizophrenia. Regan then considers psychedelic drugs and their perceived mystical properties and traces the history of placebos to ancient civilizations. Finally, Intoxicating Minds considers the physical consequences of our co-evolution with drugs -- how they have altered our very being -- and offers a glimpse of the brave new world of drug therapies.

This article examines the role of antitrust in the causes and consequences of the crisis. If market turmoil and financial upheaval can shatter the groundwork of competitive markets that antitrust seeks to protect, the shockwaves are sure to be felt in the intellectual foundations of competition policy. Section 2 considers whether antitrust contributed to the financial crisis and briefly describes the pre-crisis role of competition policy on both sides of the Atlantic with regard to the transformations that the banking sector underwent in recent decades. Section 3 analyses the crisis response on the antitrust front. Of particular importance are the two areas where the bailouts tend to collide with antitrust: mergers and, in the European context, State aid. Section 4 then looks at the challenges that economic crises have placed on antitrust enforcers. It is submitted that as the crisis deepens and recovery fails to take hold, the risks to antitrust are far more dangerous and less visible today. Although overall, antitrust enforcement does not seem to be seriously weakened in the US and at the EU level, there are troubling signs that as the current sovereign debt crisis deepens, at least some Member States may want to put a lid on antitrust. A global economic slowdown will tend to make it easier for those claiming a less aggressive antitrust policy is necessary to foster growth. Section 5 concludes that the financial crisis may increase the bias toward accepting ever-larger bank mergers. After all, if an orderly takeover is needed, to whom will central banks look to? The recent crisis showed who the usual suspects are.

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.

Regulation has been one of the most controversial topics in American business history in the 20th century. It has been undertaken for a variety of different purposes (some of them conflicting) and there has been constant conflict between goals such as economic efficiency and other desirable targets, such as the public interest. This volume includes the most important articles and papers on the many conflicting views on the causes and consequences of the American regulation and anti-trust tradition, and makes comparisons with other economies such as Germany, Britain and Japan, where policies have evolved in different forms.