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The Case for Antitrust Enforcement

The Case for Antitrust Enforcement Abstract This paper provides evidence of the necessity and success of antitrust enforcement. It begins with examples of socially beneficial antitrust challenges by the federal antitrust agencies to price-fixing and other forms of collusion; to mergers that appear likely to harm competition; and to monopolists that use anticompetitive exclusionary practices to obtain or maintain their market power. It then reviews systematic empirical evidence on the value of antitrust derived from informal experiments involving the behavior of U.S. firms during periods without effective antitrust enforcement, and the behavior of firms across different national antitrust regimes. Overall, it concludes, the benefits of antitrust enforcement to consumers and social welfare -- particularly in deterring the harms from anticompetitive conduct across the economy -- appear to be far larger than what the government spends on antitrust enforcement and firms spend directly or indirectly on antitrust compliance. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Economic Perspectives American Economic Association

The Case for Antitrust Enforcement

Journal of Economic Perspectives , Volume 17 (4) – Dec 1, 2002

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Publisher
American Economic Association
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by the American Economic Association
Subject
Symposia
ISSN
0895-3309
DOI
10.1257/089533003772034880
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract This paper provides evidence of the necessity and success of antitrust enforcement. It begins with examples of socially beneficial antitrust challenges by the federal antitrust agencies to price-fixing and other forms of collusion; to mergers that appear likely to harm competition; and to monopolists that use anticompetitive exclusionary practices to obtain or maintain their market power. It then reviews systematic empirical evidence on the value of antitrust derived from informal experiments involving the behavior of U.S. firms during periods without effective antitrust enforcement, and the behavior of firms across different national antitrust regimes. Overall, it concludes, the benefits of antitrust enforcement to consumers and social welfare -- particularly in deterring the harms from anticompetitive conduct across the economy -- appear to be far larger than what the government spends on antitrust enforcement and firms spend directly or indirectly on antitrust compliance.

Journal

Journal of Economic PerspectivesAmerican Economic Association

Published: Dec 1, 2002

There are no references for this article.