Law Commons^™

Brandeisian Banking, Kathryn Judge

Faculty Scholarship

Banking law shapes the structure of the banking system, which in turn shapes the structure of the economy. One of the most significant ways that banking law in the United States traditionally sought to promote Brandeisian values of stability and decentralization was through a combination of carrots and sticks that enabled small banks across the country to thrive. To see this requires a richer understanding of Brandeis as someone who valued not just atomistic competition but also small business and broad flourishing. It also requires a deeper understanding of the ways different parts of banking law worked together during the …

Do Legal Origins Predict Legal Substance?, Anu Bradford, Yun-Chien Chang, Adam S. Chilton, Nuno Garoupa

Faculty Scholarship

There is a large body of research in economics and law suggesting that the legal origin of a country – that is, whether its legal regime is based on English common law or French, German, or Nordic civil law – profoundly impacts a range of outcomes. However, the exact relationship between legal origin and legal substance has been disputed in the literature and not fully explored with nuanced legal coding. We revisit this debate while leveraging novel cross-country data sets that provide detailed coding of two areas of laws: property and antitrust. We find that having shared legal origins strongly …

The Curse Of Bigness: New Deal Supplement, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

This is a supplement to the book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. It covers the years between 1920 - 1945, with a focus on the New Deal, and represents material left out of the original book.

It is meant to be read together with the larger volume, but can also be read separately.

Trade Openness And Antitrust Law, Anu Bradford, Adam S. Chilton

Faculty Scholarship

Openness to international trade and adoption of antitrust laws can both curb anti-competitive behavior. But scholars have long debated the relationship between the two. Some argue that greater trade openness makes antitrust unnecessary, while others contend that antitrust laws are still needed to realize the benefits of trade liberalization. Data limitations have made this debate largely theoretical to date. We study the relationship between trade and antitrust empirically using new data on antitrust laws and enforcement activities. We find that trade openness and stringency of antitrust laws are positively correlated from 1950 to 2010 overall, but the positive correlation disappears …

Amazon – An Infrastructure Service And Its Challenge To Current Antitrust Law, Lina M. Khan

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter maps out facets of Amazon’s power. In particular, it traces the sources of Amazon’s growth and analyzes the potential effects of its dominance. Doing so enables us to make sense of the company’s business strategy and illuminates anticompetitive aspects of its structure and conduct. This analysis reveals that the current framework in antitrust — specifically its equating competition with “consumer welfare,” typically measured through short- term effects on price and output — fails to capture the architecture of market power in the 21st- century marketplace. In other words, the potential harms to competition posed by Amazon’s dominance are …

The “Protection Of The Competitive Process” Standard, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

The antitrust law should return to a standard more realistic and suited to the legal system – the “protection of the competitive process.” It posits a basic question for law enforcement and judges. Given complained-of conduct, is that conduct actually part of the competitive process, or is it a sufficient deviation as to be unlawful? In this view, antitrust law aims to create a body of common-law rules that punish and therefore deter such disruptions – hence “protecting the competitive process.”

After Consumer Welfare, Now What? The "Protection Of Competition" Standard In Practice, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

The consumer welfare standard in antitrust has been heavily criticized. But would, in fact, abandoning the “consumer welfare” standard make the antitrust law too unworkable and indeterminate?

I argue that there is such a thing as a post-consumer welfare antitrust that is practicable and arguably as predictable as the consumer welfare standard. In practice, the consumer welfare standard has not set a high bar. The leading alternative standard, the “protection of competition” is at least as predictable, and arguably more determinate than the exceeding abstract abstract consumer welfare test, while being much truer the legislative intent underlying the antitrust laws. …