In this chapter, we begin our discussion of antitrust economics by considering what many consider its most central element: its ban on "price fixing" - that is, agreements among competitors over the prices they will charge or the outputs they will produce. Indeed, the prohibition on price fixing...

In this chapter our attention turns to horizontal merger policy. The Sherman Act`s prohibition on "contracts, combinations, and conspiracies in restraint of trade," whose application to price fixing we discussed in Chapter 2, also applies to horizontal mergers, but with an important difference:...