Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics

Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics
Author: Marc Allen Eisner
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 334
Release: 1991
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780807819555

Eisner contends that Reagan's economic agenda, reinforced by limited prosecution of antitrust offenses, was an extension of well established trends. During the 1960s and 1970s, critical shifts in economic theory within the academic community were transmitted to the Antitrust Division and the FTC--shifts that were conservative and gave Reagan a background against which to operate. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics

Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics
Author: Marc Allen Eisner
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2017-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1469639777

Some of the chief aims of President Ronald Reagan's economic agenda were to reduce the "regulatory burden," minimize state intervention, and reinvigorate market mechanisms. Toward these ends, his administration limited antitrust enforcement to technical cases of price-fixing, invoking the doctrine of the Chicago school of economics. In Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics, Marc Eisner shows that the so-called "Reagan revolution" was but an extension of well-established trends. He examines organizational and procedural changes in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Jusice and the Federal Trade Commission that predated the 1980 election and forced the subsequent redefinition of policy. During their early years, the Antitrust Division and the FTC gave little attention to economic analysis. In the period following World War II, however, economic analysis assumed an increasingly important role in both agencies, and economists rose in status from being members of support staff to being pivotal decision makers who, in effect, shaped the policies for which elected officials were generally assumed to be responsible. In the 1960s and 1970s, critical shifts in prevailing economic theory within the academic community were transmitted into the agencies. This had a profound effect on how antitrust was conceptualized in the federal government. Thus, when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, the antitrust agencies were already pursuing a conservative enforcement program. Eisner's study challenges dominant explanations of policy change through a focus on institutional evolution. It has important implications for current debates on the state, professionalization, and the delegation of authority. Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Antitrust and Monopoly

Antitrust and Monopoly
Author: Dominick T. Armentano
Publisher: Independent Studies in Politic
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1996
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

The stated purpose of antitrust laws is to protect competition and the public interest. But do such laws actually restrict the competitive process, harming consumers and serving the special interests of a few politically-connected competitors? Is antitrust law a necessary defense against the predatory business practices of wealthy, entrenched corporations that dominate a market? Or does antitrust law actually work to restrain and restrict the competitive process, injuring the public it is supposed to protect? This breakthrough study examines the classic cases in antitrust law and demonstrates a surprising gap between the stated aims of antitrust law and what it actually accomplishes in the real world. Instead of protecting competition, this book asserts, antitrust law actually protects certain politically-favoured competitors. This is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand the limitations and problems of contemporary antitrust actions.

The Antitrust Paradox

The Antitrust Paradox
Author: Robert Bork
Publisher:
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2021-02-22
Genre:
ISBN: 9781736089712

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.

How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark

How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark
Author: Robert Pitofsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2008-10-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199706751

How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark is about the rise and recent fall of American antitrust. It is a collection of 15 essays, almost all expressing a deep concern that conservative economic analysis is leading judges and enforcement officials toward an approach that will ultimately harm consumer welfare. For the past 40 years or so, U.S. antitrust has been dominated intellectually by an unusually conservative style of economic analysis. Its advocates, often referred to as "The Chicago School," argue that the free market (better than any unelected band of regulators) can do a better job of achieving efficiency and encouraging innovation than intrusive regulation. The cutting edge of Chicago School doctrine originated in academia and was popularized in books by brilliant and innovative law professors like Robert Bork and Richard Posner. Oddly, a response to that kind of conservative doctrine may be put together through collections of scores of articles but until now cannot be found in any one book. This collection of essays is designed in part to remedy that situation. The chapters in this book were written by academics, former law enforcers, private sector defense lawyers, Republicans and Democrats, representatives of the left, right and center. Virtually all agree that antitrust enforcement today is better as a result of conservative analysis, but virtually all also agree that there have been examples of extreme interpretations and misinterpretations of conservative economic theory that have led American antitrust in the wrong direction. The problem is not with conservative economic analysis but with those portions of that analysis that have "overshot the mark" producing an enforcement approach that is exceptionally generous to the private sector. If the scores of practices that traditionally have been regarded as anticompetitive are ignored, or not subjected to vigorous enforcement, prices will be higher, quality of products lower, and innovation diminished. In the end consumers will pay.

Triumph of Conservatism

Triumph of Conservatism
Author: Gabriel Kolko
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2008-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1439118728

A radically new interpretation of the Progressive Era which argues that business leaders, and not the reformers, inspired the era’s legislation regarding business.

The Economists' Hour

The Economists' Hour
Author: Binyamin Appelbaum
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0316512273

In this "lively and entertaining" history of ideas (Liaquat Ahamed, The New Yorker), New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution. Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization. Some leading figures are relatively well-known, such as Milton Friedman, the elfin libertarian who had a greater influence on American life than any other economist of his generation, and Arthur Laffer, who sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin that helped to make tax cuts a staple of conservative economic policy. Others stayed out of the limelight, but left a lasting impact on modern life: Walter Oi, a blind economist who dictated to his wife and assistants some of the calculations that persuaded President Nixon to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel and rejoiced in the crowded cabins on commercial flights as the proof of his success; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life. Their fundamental belief? That government should stop trying to manage the economy.Their guiding principle? That markets would deliver steady growth, and ensure that all Americans shared in the benefits. But the Economists' Hour failed to deliver on its promise of broad prosperity. And the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of economic equality, the health of liberal democracy, and future generations. Timely, engaging and expertly researched, The Economists' Hour is a reckoning -- and a call for people to rewrite the rules of the market. A Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerWinner of the Porchlight Business Book Award in Narrative & Biography

Better Living through Economics

Better Living through Economics
Author: John J. Siegfried
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2012-03-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674267338

Better Living Through Economics consists of twelve case studies that demonstrate how economic research has improved economic and social conditions over the past half century by influencing public policy decisions. Economists were obviously instrumental in revising the consumer price index and in devising auctions for allocating spectrum rights to cell phone providers in the 1990s. But perhaps more surprisingly, economists built the foundation for eliminating the military draft in favor of an all-volunteer army in 1973, for passing the Earned Income Tax Credit in 1975, for deregulating airlines in 1978, for adopting the welfare-to-work reforms during the Clinton administration, and for implementing the Pension Reform Act of 2006 that allowed employers to automatically enroll employees in a 401(k). Other important policy changes resulting from economists’ research include a new approach to monetary policy that resulted in moderated economic fluctuations (at least until 2008!), the reduction of trade impediments that allows countries to better exploit their natural advantages, a revision of antitrust policy to focus on those market characteristics that affect competition, an improved method of placing new physicians in hospital residencies that is more likely to keep married couples in the same city, and the adoption of tradable emissions rights which has improved our environment at minimum cost.

The Great Leveler

The Great Leveler
Author: Brett Christophers
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2016-01-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674504917

Brett Christophers shows how laws help capitalism maintain a crucial balance between competition and monopoly. When monopolistic forces dominate, antitrust law discourages the growth of corporations and restores competitiveness. When competition becomes dominant, intellectual property law protects corporate assets and encourages investment.

The Myth of Capitalism

The Myth of Capitalism
Author: Jonathan Tepper
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2023-04-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1394184069

The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their pay check to monopolists and oligopolists. The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. The Myth of Capitalism is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone, because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.