This paper reexamines the economics of two common features of credit card networks: the interchange fee paid by merchant banks, or acquirers, to cardholder banks, or issuers; and the restraint commonly placed on merchants against surcharging for credit card transactions. We show that the...

Since the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act (1897) and the Sherman Act (1890), regulation and antitrust have operated as competing mechanisms to control competition. Regulation produced cross-subsidies and favors to special interests, but specified prices and rules of mandatory dealing....

Since the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act (1897) and the Sherman Act (1890), regulation and antitrust have operated as competing mechanisms to control competition. Regulation produced cross-subsidies and favors to special interests, but specified prices and rules of mandatory dealing....

The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and...

Mergers in any industry can raise complicated questions about the elimination of competition and the achievement of efficiencies. Mergers in regulated industries such as electricity raise even more complicated issues as the analyst needs to grapple with the constraining effects of regulation,...

More than a century ago, the federal government started controlling competition, first railroads through the Interstate Commerce Act and then the general economy under the Sherman Act. The Commerce Act assigned primary responsibility to the first great federal agency, the Interstate Commerce...