Law Commons^™

The Fundamental Goal Of Antitrust: Protecting Consumers, Not Increasing Efficiency, John B. Kirkwood, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

The conventional wisdom in the antitrust community is that the purpose of the antitrust laws is to promote economic efficiency. That view is incorrect. As this article shows, the fundamental goal of antitrust law is to protect consumers.

This article defines the relevant economic concepts, summarizes the legislative histories, analyzes recent case law in more depth than any prior article, and explores the most likely bases for current popular support of the antitrust laws. All these factors indicate that the ultimate goal of antitrust is not to increase the total wealth of society, but to protect consumers from behavior that …

The Lawful Acquisition And Exercise Of Monopoly Power And Its Implications For The Objectives Of Antitrust, Keith N. Hylton, David S. Evans

Faculty Scholarship

The antitrust laws of the United States have, from their inception, allowed firms to acquire significant market power, to charge prices that reflect that market power, and to enjoy supra-competitive returns. This article shows that this policy, which was established by the U.S. Congress and affirmed repeatedly by the U.S. courts, reflects a tradeoff between the dynamic benefits that society realizes from allowing firms to secure significant rewards, including monopoly profits, from making risky investments and engaging in innovation; and the static costs that society incurs when firms with significant market power raise price and curtail output. That tradeoff results …

World War 4.0: The Intel Antitrust Wars, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This short piece gives an overview of antitrust actions filed around the world against Intel for allegedly undertaking anticompetitive actions in the market for X 86 PC chips.

S08rs Sgb No. 11 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 14 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 13 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 10 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 12 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 15 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 16 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 17 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

S08rs Sgb No. 19 (Sife), O'Malley, Greene

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

Bargaining With A Hugger: The Weaknesses And Limitations Of A Communitarian Conception Of Legal Dispute Bargaining, Or Why We Can't All Just Get Along, Robert J. Condlin

Faculty Scholarship

The communitarian conception of dispute-bargaining now popular with legal academics presupposes a world in which people are always at their best. Clients and lawyers share information about themselves and their situations candidly and honestly, construct agreements from the perspective of their common interests and resolve differences according to objectively derived and jointly agreed upon substantive standards. This is supposed to take the hard edge off their disputing and make it less antagonistic, less competitive, less deceptive, less manipulative and less mean-spirited than it otherwise might be. This is a wonderfully inspiring view and it would be a source of great …

The Chicago School's Foundation Is Flawed: Antitrust Protects Consumers, John B. Kirkwood, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

Chicago School antitrust policy rests on the premise that the purpose of the antitrust laws is to promote economic efficiency. That foundation is flawed. The fundamental goal of antitrust law is to protect consumers.

This essay defines the relevant economic concepts, summarizes the legislative histories, and analyzes recent case law. All these factors indicate that the ultimate goal of antitrust is not to increase the total wealth of society, but to protect consumers from behavior that deprives them of the benefits of competition and transfers their wealth to firms with market power. When conduct presents a conflict between the welfare …

Email To Bob Bone Re: Idea Expression Dichotomy, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

This is to recap our discussion, to make sure we're on the same page, and carry this a bit further. I'm very excited.

Nothing But The Truth? Experiments On Adversarial Competition, Expert Testimony, And Decision Making, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

Many scholars debate whether a competition between experts in legal, political, or economic contexts elicits truthful information and, in turn, enables people to make informed decisions. Thus, we analyze experimentally the conditions under which competition between experts induces the experts to make truthful statements and enables jurors listening to these statements to improve their decisions. Our results demonstrate that, contrary to game theoretic predictions and contrary to critics of our adversarial legal system, competition induces enough truth telling to allow jurors to improve their decisions. Then, when we impose additional institutions (such as penalties for lying or the threat of …

Public Procurement Systems: Unpacking Stakeholder Aspirations And Expectations, Steven L. Schooner, Daniel I. Gordon, Jessica L. Clark

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Around the world, governments are increasingly becoming focused on improving their public procurement regimes. Significant developments include the establishment of internationally shared norms for public procurement systems, while, at the national level, a number of countries have adopted dramatically new public procurement regimes, and others are experimenting with new procurement vehicles, such as framework agreements and electronic reverse auctions, and new procurement schemes, including public-private partnerships. As each of these changes is contemplated, planned, implemented, and then assessed, government leaders and policy makers need a framework of analysis for decision making - a framework based on public procurement goals and …

Algorithmic Entities, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

In a 2014 article, Professor Shawn Bayern demonstrated that anyone can confer legal personhood on an autonomous computer algorithm by putting it in control of a limited liability company. Bayern’s demonstration coincided with the development of “autonomous” online businesses that operate independently of their human owners—accepting payments in online currencies and contracting with human agents to perform the off-line aspects of their businesses. About the same time, leading technologists Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking said that they regard human-level artificial intelligence as an existential threat to the human race. This Article argues that algorithmic entities—legal entities that have …

Innovation And The Domain Of Competition Policy, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Antitrust policy and the IP laws are both concerned with practices that restrain competition unnecessarily by reducing the size of the public domain beyond that which the Constitution contemplates, or as Congress intended for them to be expanded. In fact, antitrust has a dual role as promoter of competition in IP intensive markets. It regulates both restraints on competition and restraints on innovation. The first line protector of the competitive process in innovation is the IP statutes themselves. The Constitutional Mandate to Congress to create intellectual property regimes in order to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts is …

Exclusionary Bundled Discounts And The Antitrust Modernization Commission, Erik Hovenkamp, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

A bundled discount occurs when a seller charges less for a bundle of goods than for its components when sold separately. A characteristic of such discounting is that a rival who makes only one of the products in the bundle may have to give a larger per item discount in order to compensate the buyer for the foregone discount on goods that the rival does not sell. For example, if I sell A and B and offer a 20% discount only to customers who purchase one A and one B together, a rival in the B market might be able …

Sarbanes-Oxley, Kermit The Frog, And Competition Regarding Audit Quality, Matthew J. Barrett

Journal Articles

The regulatory scheme after Sarbanes-Oxley has significantly improved public company audits in the United States, or at least has demonstrated the potential to do so, but the obligation to preserve client confidentially still prevents auditors from competing for new clients on the basis of audit quality. This paper suggests a simple way for the SEC to facilitate such competition within the existing regulatory framework. The SEC should require issuers and registrants to disclose whether their independent audits uncovered any financial fraud and, within specified ranges, the number and amount of all audit adjustments incorporated into the financial statements filed with …

Pharma's Nonobvious Problem, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

This Article considers the effect of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. on the nonobviousness standard for patentability as applied to pharmaceutical patents. By calling for an expansive and flexible analysis and disapproving of the use of rigid formulas in evaluating an invention for obviousness, KSR may appear to make it easier for generic competitors to challenge the validity of drug patents. But an examination of the Federal Circuit's nonobviousness jurisprudence in the context of such challenges reveals that the Federal Circuit has been employing all along the sort of flexible …