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Throughout the world, the rule against price fixing is competition law's most important and least controversial prohibition. Yet there is far less consensus than meets the eye on what constitutes price fixing, and prevalent understandings conflict with the teachings of oligopoly theory that supposedly underlie modern competition policy. Competition Policy and Price Fixing provides the needed analytical foundation. It offers a fresh, in-depth exploration of competition law's horizontal agreement requirement, presents a systematic analysis of how best to address the problem of coordinated oligopolistic price elevation, and compares the resulting direct approach to the orthodox prohibition. In doing so, Louis Kaplow elaborates the relevant benefits and costs of potential solutions, investigates how coordinated price elevation is best detected in light of the error costs associated with different types of proof, and examines appropriate sanctions. Existing literature devotes remarkably little attention to these key subjects and instead concerns itself with limiting penalties to certain sorts of interfirm communications. Challenging conventional wisdom, Kaplow shows how this circumscribed view is less well grounded in the statutes, principles, and precedents of competition law than is a more direct, functional proscription. More important, by comparison to the communications-based prohibition, he explains how the direct approach targets situations that involve both greater social harm and less risk of chilling desirable behavior--and is also easier to apply.
This volume contains a selection of papers that were presented at the CRESSE Conferences held in Chania, Crete, from July 6th to 8th, 2012, and in Corfu from July 5th to 7th, 2013. The chapters address current policy issues in competition and regulation. The book contains contributions at the frontier of competition economics and regulation and provides perspectives on recent research findings in the field. Written by experts in their respective fields, the book brings together current thinking on market forces at play in imperfectly competitive industries, how firms use anti-competitive practices to their advantage and how competition policy and regulation can address market failures. It provides an in-depth analysis of various ongoing debates and offers fresh insights in terms of conceptual understanding, empirical findings and policy implications. The book contributes to our understanding of imperfectly competitive markets, anti-competitive practices and competition policy and regulation.
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.
A dynamic and competitive environment, underpinned by competition law policy, is an essential characteristic of successful market economies. To satisfy the growing demand for information on current approaches and practices in competition law policy, the project "Framework for the Design and Implementation of Competition Law-Policy" was initiated by the World Bank, with participation by OECD. This ensuing volume reflects the main issues that arise in design and implementation of competition law and policy in order to assist countries in developing an approach that suits their own needs and conditions. The views articulated in this publication suggest that the administration and enforcement of competition law policy should assign the greatest importance to fostering economic efficiency and consumer welfare.
This is the first book to provide a systematic treatment of the economics of antitrust (or competition policy) in a global context. It draws on the literature of industrial organisation and on original analyses to deal with such important issues as cartels, joint-ventures, mergers, vertical contracts, predatory pricing, exclusionary practices, and price discrimination, and to formulate policy implications on these issues. The interaction between theory and practice is one of the main features of the book, which contains frequent references to competition policy cases and a few fully developed case studies. The treatment is written to appeal to practitioners and students, to lawyers and economists. It is not only a textbook in economics for first year graduate or advanced undergraduate courses, but also a book for all those who wish to understand competition issues in a clear and rigorous way. Exercises and some solved problems are provided.
Canadian Competition Law and Policy provides a succinct and accessible analysis of the Competition Act and related legislation, regulations, enforcement guidelines, and other guidance. The book provides extensive case examples drawn from Canadian, American, European, and other competition law authorities to illuminate concepts and legal tests.
This collection of essays represents the first in a series of two volumes that set out to reflect the state of the art of antitrust thinking in digital markets in jurisdictions around the world. The issues it tackles are many: the role of innovation, the conundrum of big data, the evolution of media markets, and the question of whether existing antitrust tools are sufficient to deal with the challenges of digital markets. Each author tackles the overarching themes from their unique national perspective. The resulting tapestry reflects the challenges and opportunities presented by the modern digital era, viewed through the lens of competition enforcement.
Antitrust law regulates economic activity but differs in its operation from what is traditionally considered "regulation." Where regulation is often industry-specific and involves the direct setting of prices, product characteristics, or entry, antitrust law focuses more broadly on maintaining certain basic rules of competition. In these lectures Michael Whinston offers an accessible and lucid account of the economics behind antitrust law, looking at some of the most recent developments in antitrust economics and highlighting areas that require further research. He focuses on three areas: price fixing, in which competitors agree to restrict output or raise price; horizontal mergers, in which competitors agree to merge their operations; and exclusionary vertical contracts, in which a competitor seeks to exclude a rival. Antitrust commentators widely regard the prohibition on price fixing as the most settled and economically sound area of antitrust. Whinston's discussion seeks to unsettle this view, suggesting that some fundamental issues in this area are, in fact, not well understood. In his discussion of horizontal mergers, Whinston describes the substantial advances in recent theoretical and empirical work and suggests fruitful directions for further research. The complex area of exclusionary vertical contracts is perhaps the most controversial in antitrust. The influential "Chicago School" cast doubt on arguments that vertical contracts could be profitably used to exclude rivals. Recent theoretical work, to which Whinston has made important contributions, instead shows that such contracts can be profitable tools for exclusion. Whinston's discussion sheds light on the controversy in this area and the nature of those recent theoretical contributions. Sponsored by the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Some books get written, others write themselves. This book is the latter type. I have devoted myselfto studying the economic organization of industries related to food and agriculture for almost twenty-five years. It has been my good fortune to work at places that tolerated my gadfly approach to research. So long as I produced a few publications each year and wooed a few graduate students to share those interests, I was free to pursue an array of topics: why firms diversifY, the competitive role of advertising, strategies for selling in overseas markets, measuring market power, and many others. Although firmly anchored in the eclectic analytical framework of industrial economics and focused on the food system, I traversed a wide field at will. Some years ago, I had pretty much convinced myself that naked price fixing was not a high priority for scholarship in these industries. True, collusion was rife in a few food industries, such as bid-rigging among suppliers of fluid milk to school districts in isolated rural districts. Ripping off milk money from school children is reprehensible enough, but the size of the economic losses from localized price fixing paled besides other sources of imperfect competition.
One of the most-followed antitrust cases of recent times—United States v. Apple—reveals an often-missed truth: what Americans most fear is competition itself. In 2012 the Department of Justice accused Apple and five book publishers of conspiring to fix ebook prices. The evidence overwhelmingly showed an unadorned price-fixing conspiracy that cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet before, during, and after the trial millions of Americans sided with the defendants. Pundits on the left and right condemned the government for its decision to sue, decrying Amazon’s market share, railing against a new high-tech economy, and rallying to defend beloved authors and publishers. For many, Amazon was the one that should have been put on trial. But why? One fact went unrecognized and unreckoned with: in practice, Americans have long been ambivalent about competition. Chris Sagers, a renowned antitrust expert, meticulously pulls apart the misunderstandings and exaggerations that industries as diverse as mom-and-pop grocers and producers of cast-iron sewer pipes have cited to justify colluding to forestall competition. In each of these cases, antitrust law, a time-honored vehicle to promote competition, is put on the defensive. Herein lies the real insight of United States v. Apple. If we desire competition as a policy, we must make peace with its sometimes rough consequences. As bruising as markets in their ordinary operation often seem, letting market forces play out has almost always benefited the consumer. United States v. Apple shows why supporting cases that protect price competition, even when doing so hurts some of us, is crucial if antitrust law is to protect and maintain markets.