Law and Economics Commons^™

Consumer Choice As The Best Way To Describe The Goals Of Competition Law, Robert H. Lande

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This article is both a short introduction to the Consumer Choice explanation for Competition Law or Antitrust Law, and also a short advocacy piece suggesting that Consumer Choice is the best way to articulate the goals of European Competition Law and United States Antitrust Law.

This article briefly:

1. defines the consumer choice approach to antitrust or competition law and shows how it differs from other approaches;
2. shows that the antitrust statutes and theories of violation embody a concern for optimal levels of consumer choice;
3. shows that the United States antitrust case law embodies a concern for optimal levels of consumer …

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

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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 …

Using The "Consumer Choice" Approach To Antitrust Law, Neil W. Averitt, Robert H. Lande

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The current paradigms of antitrust law - price and efficiency - do not work well enough. They were an immense improvement over their predecessors, and they have served the field competently for a generation, producing reasonably accurate results in most circumstances. Accumulated experience has also revealed their shortcomings, however. They are hard to fully understand and are not particularly transparent in their application. Moreover, in a disturbingly large number of circumstances they are unable to handle the important issue of non-price competition.

In this article we suggest replacing the older paradigms with the somewhat broader approach of "consumer choice." The …

The Three Types Of Collusion: Fixing Prices, Rivals, And Rules, Robert H. Lande, Howard P. Marvel

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Collusion can profitably be classified into three distinct types. In our classification, "Type I" collusion is the familiar direct agreement among colluding firms (a cartel) to raise prices or, equivalently, restrict output. Alternatively, firms can collude to disadvantage rivals in ways that causes those rivals to cut output. We term this "Type II" collusion. Its indirect effect is an increase in market prices.

A number of important collusion cases neither direct manipulation of prices or output, nor direct attacks on rivals. Examples include Supreme Court cases such as National Society of Professional Engineers v. US, Bates v. State Bar of …

The Evolution Of United States Antitrust Law: The Past, Present, And (Possible) Future, Albert A. Foer, Robert H. Lande

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As the world’s nations rapidly move from systems in which central planning and monopoly are replaced by free markets,2 it becomes increasingly valuable to consider the histories of competition policy experienced in different nations, on a comparative basis.3 In this article, we focus on the history of antitrust in the United States, the first nation to develop and fully-articulate a competition policy, drawing out themes that may be useful to other countries as they contemplate the shape and direction of their own competition regimes. We show that the American competition policy has reflected an underlying stability and bi-partisanship, but that …

Creating Competition Policy For Transition Economies: Introduction, Robert H. Lande

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This is an introduction to a symposium on Creating Competition for Transition Economies. This article provides an overview of the topic, and also briefly introduces the authors of the articles in the symposium; William Kovacic, Eleanor Fox, Spencer Weber Waller, Malcolm Coate, and Armando Rodriguez.