Download or read book Economics and the Interpretation and Application of U S and E U Antitrust Law written by Richard S. Markovits and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 799 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume (1) defines the specific-anticompetitive-intent, lessening-competition, distorting-competition, and exploitative-abuse tests of illegality promulgated by U.S. and/or E.U. antitrust law, (2) compares the efficiency defenses promulgated by U.S. and E.U. antitrust law, (3) compares the conduct-coverage of the various U.S. and E.U. antitrust laws, (4) defines price competition and quality-or-variety-increasing-investment (QV-investment) competition and explains why they should be analyzed separately, (5) defines the components of individualized-pricing and across-the-board-pricing sellers’ price minus marginal cost gaps and analyses each’s determinants, (6) defines the determinants of the intensity of QV-investment competition and explains how they determine that intensity, (7) demonstrates that definitions of both classical and antitrust markets are inevitably arbitrary, not just at their periphery but comprehensively, (8) criticizes the various protocols for market definition recommended/used by scholars, the U.S. antitrust agencies, the European Commission, and U.S. and E.U. courts, (9) explains that a firm’s economic (market) power or dominance depends on its power over both price and QV investment and demonstrates that, even if markets could be defined non-arbitrarily, a firm’s economic power could not be predicted from its market share, (10) articulates a definition of “oligopolistic conduct” that some economists have implicitly used–conduct whose perpetrator-perceived ex ante profitability depended critically on the perpetrator’s belief that its rivals’ responses would be affected by their belief that it could react to their responses, distinguishes two types of such conduct–contrived and natural–by whether it entails anticompetitive threats and/or offers, explains why this distinction is critical under U.S. but not E.U. antitrust law, analyzes the profitability of each kind of oligopolistic conduct, examines these analyses’ implications for each’s antitrust legality, and criticizes related U.S. and E.U. case-law and doctrine and scholarly positions (e.g., on the evidence that establishes the illegal oligopolistic character of pricing), and (11) executes parallel analyses of predatory conduct--e.g., criticizes various arguments for the inevitable unprofitability of predatory pricing, the various tests that economists/U.S. courts advocate using/use to determine whether pricing is predatory, and two analyses by economists of the conditions under which QV investment and systems rivalry are predatory and examines the conditions under which production-process research, plant-modernization, and long-term full-requirements contracts are predatory.
Download or read book Economics and the Interpretation and Application of U S and E U Antitrust Law Basic concepts and economics based legal analyses of oligopolistic and predatory conduct written by Richard S. Markovits and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Economics and the Interpretation and Application of U S and E U Antitrust Law written by Richard S. Markovits and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 2 uses the economic and legal concepts/theories of Volume 1 to (1) analyze the U.S. and E.U. antitrust legality of mergers, joint ventures, and the pricing-technique and contractual/sales-policy distributor-control surrogates for vertical integration and (2) assess related positions of scholars and U.S. and E.U. antitrust officials. Its analysis of horizontal mergers (1) delineates non-market-oriented protocols for determining whether they manifest specific anticompetitive intent, would lessen competition, or are rendered lawful by the efficiencies they would generate, (2) criticizes the U.S. courts’ traditional market-share/market-concentration protocol, the HHI-oriented protocols of the 1992 U.S. DOJ/FTC Guidelines and the European Commission (EC) Guidelines, and the various non-market-oriented protocols the DOJ/FTC have increasingly been using, (3) argues that, although the 2010 U.S. Guidelines and DOJ/FTC officials discuss market definition as if it matters, those Guidelines actually reject market-oriented approaches, and (4) reviews the relevant U.S. and E.U. case-law. Its analysis of conglomerate mergers (1) shows that they can perform the same legitimate and competition-increasing functions as horizontal mergers and can yield illegitimate profits and lessen competition by increasing contrived oligopolistic pricing and retaliation barriers to investment, (2) analyzes the determinants of all these effects, and (3) assesses limit-price theory, the toe-hold-merger doctrine, and U.S. and E.U. case-law. Its analysis of vertical conduct (1) examines the legitimate functions of each type of such conduct, (2) delineates the conditions under which each manifests specific anticompetitive intent and/or lessens competition, and (3) assesses related U.S. and E.U. case-law and DOJ/FTC and EC positions. Its analysis of joint ventures (1) explains that they violate U.S. law only when they manifest specific anticompetitive intent while they violate E.U. law either for this reason or because they lessen competition, (2) discusses the meaning of an “ancillary restraint” and demonstrates that whether a joint-venture agreement would be illegal if it imposed no restraints and whether any restraints imposed are ancillary can be determined only through case-by-case analysis, (3) explains why scholars and officials overestimate the economic efficiency of R&D joint ventures, and (4) discusses related U.S. and E.U. case-law and DOJ/FTC and EC positions. The study’s Conclusion (1) reviews how its analyses justify its innovative conceptual systems and (2) compares U.S. and E.U. antitrust law as written and as applied.
Download or read book Welfare Economics and Antitrust Policy Vol I written by Richard S. Markovits and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is Volume I of a two-volume set on antitrust policy, analyzing the economic efficiency and moral desirability of various tests for antitrust legality, including those promulgated by US and EU antitrust law. The overall study consists of three parts. Part I (Chapters 1-8) introduces readers to the economic, moral, and legal concepts that play important roles in antitrust-policy analysis. Part II (Chapters 9-16) analyzes the impacts of eight types of conduct covered by antitrust policy and various possible government responses to such conduct in terms of economic efficiency, the securing of liberal moral rights, and the instantiation of various utilitarian, non-utilitarian-egalitarian, and mixed conceptions of the moral good. Part III (Chapters 17-18) provides detailed information on US antitrust law and EU competition law, and compares the extent to which—when correctly interpreted and applied—these two bodies of law could ensure economic efficiency, protect liberal moral rights, and instantiate various morally defensible conceptions of the moral good. This first volume contains Part I and the first two chapters of Part II of the overall study—the two chapters that focus on oligopolistic and predatory conduct of all kinds, respectively. The book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students of economics and law who are interested in welfare economics, antitrust legality and the General Theory of the Second Best.
Download or read book Economics and the Interpretation and Application of U S and E U Antitrust Law I II written by Richard S. Markovits and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vol. I (1) operationalizes the specific-anticompetitive-intent and lessening-competition tests of illegality both U.S. and E.U. antitrust law promulgate and the distorting-competition and exploitative-abuse-of-a-dominant-position tests E.U. law promulgates, (2) distinguishes these tests from an economic-inefficiency test of illegality, (3) lists the antitrust licit and illicit categories of profits conduct can yield, (4) develops conceptual systems and theories for analyzing conduct’s impact on price and quality-or-variety-increasing-investment competition, (5) demonstrates that definitions of both economic and antitrust markets are inevitably comprehensively arbitrary, (6) criticizes various market-definition protocols proposed by scholars or used by government officials, (7) explains why no market-oriented approach to measuring a firm’s economic power or conduct’s antitrust illegality can be acceptable, (8) analyzes the profitability of oligopolistic and predatory conduct of all kinds and criticizes various scholarly arguments about their profitability, (9) proposes protocols for determining whether illegal-oligopolistic or predatory conduct has taken place and criticizes various scholarly and official protocols for doing so, and (10) examines the U.S. and E.U. case-law on such conduct and the European Commission’s positions on predatory conduct. Vol. II uses non-market-oriented approaches to analyze (1) the determinants of whether horizontal mergers, conglomerate mergers, vertical mergers, vertical internal growth, the various surrogates for vertical integration, joint ventures, and other sorts of collaborative arrangements violate the specific-anticompetitive-intent or lessening-competition test of illegality--i.e., violate U.S. and E.U. antitrust law, correctly interpreted and applied, (2) the determinants of the competitive impact of a rule allowing all members of a set of product rivals to engage in any type of vertical conduct and the legal relevance of such a rule’s competitive impact, (3) the U.S. and E.U. case-law on all the above categories of conduct, and (4) the positions that the U.S. DOJ, FTC, and European Commission have taken on the appropriate way to analyze the legality of each such category of conduct and on the circumstances in which exemplars of each such category of conduct will be illegal. Vol. II concludes by comparing U.S. and E.U. antitrust law both as written and as actually interpreted and applied.
Download or read book Law Economics and Antitrust written by Paddy McNutt and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: . . . those who are dealing with antitrust issues the book is very useful and if somebody has already acquired the basic economic principles underlying antitrust regimes, one should read [this] book. . . Pal Bela Szilagyi and Dorina Juhasz, Erasmus Law and Economics Review The book is quite often an interesting read and provokes plenty of unexpected thoughts. . . Scholars familiar with the public choice literature and American antitrust law could benefit from the stimulating questions McNutt raises throughout and for the wealth of examples from European competition law. Scott E. Graves, The Law and Politics Book Review Patrick McNutt s book is a brilliant exposé of the interaction between law, economics and antitrust. The author, an economist and distinguished regulator, handles both the legal and economic material deftly. It is provocative particularly when dealing with issues such as the efficiency of competition and the effectiveness of antitrust rules. His case-studies are particularly compelling. The book is written with huge flair and great learning. It combines theoretical and practical considerations. The comparative coverage is excellent. A "must-read" for all interested in law and economics. Antitrust specialists will discover many novel and valid insights. David O Keeffe, University College London, UK and College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium This book continually stimulates the reader to think about the issues in non-standard and illuminating ways, following new and significant directions. Yet the discussion always is authoritatively grounded in the author s extensive knowledge of the pertinent law and the relevant economic analysis. William J. Baumol, New York University, US and Princeton University, US Professor McNutt provides a refreshing and different perspective on the important fundamental issues underlying competition law and policy. Barry E. Hawk, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, US In this accessible yet rigorous textbook, Patrick McNutt presents a clear and refreshing approach to a wide range of topics in law, economics and antitrust. The issues covered include duty and obligation, contracting, liability, property rights, efficient entry, compensation, oligopoly pricing, issues in strategic antitrust and merger analysis. Using a selection of case studies where appropriate, and examples based in game theory, the book examines these issues from both a law and economics and a microeconomics perspective. Emphasis is placed on a thorough assessment of the economic and legal arguments, blending the rigours of microeconomic analysis with common law standards. The analysis contained in the book will not only review, and indeed adapt neoclassical economic analysis but will also apply some of the methodology from the relatively new paradigm known as law and economics to many of the issues. The book also addresses the increasing overlap between emerging approaches in public choice and in law and economics. Practitioners in competition law and regulation of utilities will draw great value from this original and pertinent volume, as will scholars in the areas of regulation, competition law, competition policy and law and economics.
Download or read book Economics and the Interpretation and Application of U S and E U Antitrust Law Economics based legal analyses of mergers vertical practices and joint ventures written by Richard S. Markovits and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Innovation Markets and Competition Analysis written by Marcus Glader and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is warmly recommended to practitioners and academics from both the legal and the economic field. Guido Westkamp, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice . . . Glader offers strong commentary and case explanation, coupled with insightful analysis, in this complex area. . . This book is strong on both the relevant law, and the economics arena in which the law must be applied, and deals equally well with the US and EC principles and practice. Mark Furse, European Competition Law Review The pace and scope of technological change is increasing, but some innovative technologies take years before they give rise to saleable products. Before they do, there is competition in ideas and research, but the ideas cannot be market tested, because there are no products or services to offer to consumers. Competition law, in Europe and the USA, cannot be applied to competition in research for innovation as if it was competition between products. Completely different problems arise and a completely different approach is needed. This book, the first on innovation markets, shows how this new approach has been used by competition authorities on both sides of the Atlantic in a wide variety of cases. It analyses in depth and detail the comparative law and economics of the problems arising from the different stages of these markets . It considers how far conclusions can be drawn about the future and comes to interesting, practical and sensible conclusions. And it avoids both unjustified scepticism and exaggerated enthusiasm about the theories of innovation markets. John Temple Lang, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Brussels and London; Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and Oxford University, UK This book examines the legal standards and their underlying economic rationale for the protection of competition in the innovation process, in both European competition law and American antitrust law. Apart from relevant regulatory frameworks, the author also reviews a range of case laws, which assess whether a transaction or unilateral conduct would limit market participants incentives and abilities for continued innovation and future competition. At the centre of this study is the innovation market concept. This concept entails the delineation, for purposes of antitrust analysis, of an upstream market for competing R&D. Questions of market definition, the assessment of innovation competition in defined markets, the role of efficiencies in the appraisal of transactions and possible remedies to alleviate anti-competitive effects are also explored. Updating the field of research in light of new developments and broadening and deepening the categorization and analysis of the innovation market area, this book will be of great interest to academics, practitioners and consultants, and also public policymakers.
Download or read book Antitrust Law and Economics written by Keith N. Hylton and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this outstanding new book Professor Keith Hylton and his collaborators examine what antitrust law has become over the past ten years, a time in which economic analysis has become its undisputed core. What has become of the old antitrust doctrine, what are the new issues for the immediate future? This book brings together the leading experts to examine this silent revolution at the core of US domestic policy. Mark Grady, UCLA School of Law, US Hylton s Antitrust Law and Economics brings together many of the best authors writing in antitrust today. Their essays range widely, covering proof of agreement under the Sherman Act, group boycotts, monopolization and essential facilities, tying and other vertical restraints, and merger policy. The writing is clear, accessible but still technically sophisticated and comprehensive. This book represents the best in contemporary antitrust scholarship, by authors who understand and are able to communicate the centrality of economic analysis to antitrust. No antitrust lawyer, serious antitrust student, or antitrust economist should be without this book. Herbert Hovenkamp, University of Iowa College of Law, US This comprehensive book provides an extensive overview of the major topics of antitrust law from an economic perspective. Its in-depth treatment and analysis of both the law and economics of antitrust is presented via a collection of interconnected original essays. The contributing authors are among the most influential scholars in antitrust, with a rich diversity of backgrounds. Their entries cover, amongst other issues, predatory pricing, essential facilities, tying, vertical restraints, enforcement, mergers, market power, monopolization standards, and facilitating practices. This well-organized and substantial work will be invaluable to professors of American antitrust law and European competition law, as well as students specializing in competition law. It will also be an important reference for professors and graduate students of economics and business.
Download or read book Predatory Pricing in Antitrust Law and Economics written by Nicola Giocoli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a price ever be too low? Can competition ever be ruinous? Questions like these have always accompanied American antitrust law. They testify to the difficulty of antitrust enforcement, of protecting competition without protecting competitors. As the business practice that most directly raises these kinds of questions, predatory pricing is at the core of antitrust debates. The history of its law and economics offers a privileged standpoint for assessing the broader development of antitrust, its past, present and future. In contrast to existing literature, this book adopts the perspective of the history of economic thought to tell this history, covering a period from the late 1880s to present times. The image of a big firm, such as Rockefeller’s Standard Oil or Duke’s American Tobacco, crushing its small rivals by underselling them is iconic in American antitrust culture. It is no surprise that the most brilliant legal and economic minds of the last 130 years have been engaged in solving the predatory pricing puzzle. The book shows economic theories that build rigorous stories explaining when predatory pricing may be rational, what welfare harm it may cause and how the law may fight it. Among these narratives, a special place belongs to the Chicago story, according to which predatory pricing is never profitable and every low price is always a good price.
Download or read book Research Handbook on the Economics of Antitrust Law written by Einer Elhauge and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Antitrust Paradox written by Robert Bork and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Antitrust Law written by Keith N. Hylton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-03-27 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface p. xi 1 Economics p. 1 I. Definitions p. 1 II. Perfect Competition Versus Monopoly p. 9 III. Further Topics p. 21 2 Law and Policy p. 27 I. Some Interpretation Issues p. 28 II. Enacting the Antitrust Law p. 30 III. What Should Antitrust Law Aim to Do? p. 40 3 Enforcement p. 43 I. Optimal Enforcement Theory p. 43 II. Enforcement Provision of the Antitrust Laws p. 47 Appendix p. 64 4 Cartels p. 68 I. Cartels p. 68 II. Conscious Parallelism p. 73 III. Conclusion p. 89 5 Development of Section 1 Doctrine p. 90 I. The Sherman Act Versus the Common Law p. 90 II. Rule of Reason and Per-Se Rule p. 104 III. Conclusion p. 112 6 Rule of Reason and Per-Se Rule p. 113 I. The Case for Price Fixing p. 113 II. Per-Se and Rule of Reason Analysis: Further Developments p. 116 III. Per-Se Versus Rule of Reason Tests: Understanding the Supreme Court's Justification for the Per-Se Rule p. 129 7 Agreement p. 132 I. The Development of Inference Doctrine p. 133 II. Rejection of Unilateral Contract Theory p. 140 8 Facilitating Mechanisms p. 144 I. Data Dissemination Cases p. 145 II. Basing Point Pricing and Related Practices p. 154 III. Basing Point Pricing: Economics p. 160 9 Boycotts p. 166 I. Pre-Socony p. 166 II. Post-Socony p. 170 III. Post-BMI/Sylvania p. 181 IV. Conclusion p. 184 10 Monopolization p. 186 I. Development of Section 2 Doctrine p. 186 II. Leveraging and Essential Facility Cases p. 202 III. Predatory Pricing p. 212 IV. Conclusion p. 228 11 Power p. 230 I. Measuring Market Power p. 230 II. Determinants of Market Power p. 235 III. Substitutability and the Relevant Market: Cellophane p. 237 IV. Multimarket Monopoly and the Relevant Market: Alcoa p. 239 V. Measuring Power: Guidelines p. 243 12 Attempts p. 244 I. The Swift Formula and Modern Doctrine p. 244 II. Dangerous Probability Requirement p. 248 13 Vertical Restraints p. 252 I. Resale Price Maintenance p. 252 II. Vertical Nonprice Restraints p. 262 III. Manufacturer Retains Title p. 267 IV. Agreement p. 270 14 Tying and Exclusive Dealing p. 279 I. Introduction p. 279 II. Early Cases p. 284 III. Development of Per-Se Rule p. 286 IV. Tension Between Rule of Reason Arguments and Per-Se Rule p. 295 V. Technological Tying p. 301 VI. Exclusive Dealing p. 303 Appendix p. 307 15 Horizontal Mergers p. 311 I. Reasons for Merging and Implications for Law p. 311 II. Horizontal Merger Law p. 317 III. Conclusion p. 330 Appendix p. 330 16 Mergers, Vertical and Conglomerate p. 333 I. Vertical Mergers p. 333 II. Conglomerate Mergers p. 344 III. Concluding Remarks p. 351 17 Antitrust and the State p. 352 I. Noerr-Pennington Doctrine p. 354 II. Parker Doctrine p. 371 III. Some Final Comments: Error Costs and Immunity Doctrines p. 375 Index p. 379.
Download or read book An Economic Analysis of Public Law written by George Dellis and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-26 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original and insightful book considers the ways in which public law, which emphasises legality (the Demos), and economics, a science oriented towards the markets (the Agora), intertwine. Throughout, George Dellis argues that the concepts of legality and efficiency should not be perceived separately.
Download or read book Welfare Economics and Antitrust Policy Vol II written by Richard S. Markovits and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is Volume II of a two-volume set on antitrust policy, analyzing the economic efficiency and moral desirability of various kinds of antitrust-policy-coverable conduct and various possible government responses to such conduct, including US and EU antitrust law. The overall study consists of three parts. Part I (Chapters 1-8) introduces readers to the economic, moral, and legal concepts that play important roles in antitrust-policy analysis. Part II (Chapters 9-16) analyzes the impacts of eight types of conduct covered by antitrust policy and various possible government responses to such conduct in terms of their economic efficiency, their impact on liberal moral rights, and their instantiation of various utilitarian and other egalitarian conceptions of the moral good. Part III (Chapters 17-18) provides detailed information on US antitrust law and EU competition law and compares the extent to which—when correctly interpreted and applied—these two bodies of law could increase economic efficiency, protect liberal moral rights, and instantiate various morally defensible conceptions of the moral good. This second volume contains the last 6 chapters of Part II, which focus respectively on horizontal (M&A)s, conglomerate (M&A)s, surrogates for vertical integration, vertical (M&A)s, joint ventures, and internal growth and Part III, which focuses on US antitrust law and EU competition law. The book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students of economics and law who are interested in welfare economics, antitrust policy, and The General Theory of Second Best.
Download or read book Welfare Economics and Second Best Theory written by Richard S. Markovits and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-05-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the implications of The General Theory of Second Best for analyzing the economic efficiency of non-government conduct or government policies in an economically efficient way. It develops and legitimates an economically efficient economic-efficiency-analysis protocol with three unique characteristics: First, the protocol focuses separately on each of a wide variety of categories of economic inefficiency, many of which conventional analyses ignore. Second, it analyzes the impact of conduct or policies on each of these categories of economic inefficiency, primarily by predicting the respective conduct’s/policy’s impact on the distortion that the economy’s various Pareto imperfections generate in the profits yielded by the resource allocations associated with the individual categories of economic inefficiency—i.e., on the difference between their profitability and economic efficiency. And third, it is third-best—i.e., it instructs the analyst to execute a theoretical or empirical research project if and only if the economic-efficiency gains the project is expected to generate by increasing the accuracy of economic-efficiency conclusions exceed the predicted allocative cost of its execution and public financing. The book also uses the protocol to analyze the economic efficiency of specific policies so as to illustrate both how it differs from the protocols that most applied welfare economists continue to use and how its conclusions differ from those produced by standard analysis.
Download or read book Antitrust written by Amy Klobuchar and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Antitrust enforcement is one of the most pressing issues facing America today—and Amy Klobuchar, the widely respected senior senator from Minnesota, is leading the charge. This fascinating history of the antitrust movement shows us what led to the present moment and offers achievable solutions to prevent monopolies, promote business competition, and encourage innovation. In a world where Google reportedly controls 90 percent of the search engine market and Big Pharma’s drug price hikes impact healthcare accessibility, monopolies can hurt consumers and cause marketplace stagnation. Klobuchar—the much-admired former candidate for president of the United States—argues for swift, sweeping reform in economic, legislative, social welfare, and human rights policies, and describes plans, ideas, and legislative proposals designed to strengthen antitrust laws and antitrust enforcement. Klobuchar writes of the historic and current fights against monopolies in America, from Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to the Progressive Era's trust-busters; from the breakup of Ma Bell (formerly the world's biggest company and largest private telephone system) to the pricing monopoly of Big Pharma and the future of the giant tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. She begins with the Gilded Age (1870s-1900), when builders of fortunes and rapacious robber barons such as J. P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were reaping vast fortunes as industrialization swept across the American landscape, with the rich getting vastly richer and the poor, poorer. She discusses President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920), "busted" the trusts, breaking up monopolies; the Clayton Act of 1914; the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914; and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, which it strengthened the Clayton Act. She explores today's Big Pharma and its price-gouging; and tech, television, content, and agriculture communities and how a marketplace with few players, or one in which one company dominates distribution, can hurt consumer prices and stifle innovation. As the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Klobuchar provides a fascinating exploration of antitrust in America and offers a way forward to protect all Americans from the dangers of curtailed competition, and from vast information gathering, through monopolies.
