This paper tests a model of political control of the bureaucracy using a data set of mergers evaluated by the Federal Trade Commission between 1983 and 2000. The results support a sophisticated control model in which the President sets the agenda within the scope of policies acceptable to...

This paper provides a positive analysis of the evolution of competence allocation within the EU Competition Policy System. In the EU, competition policy competences are ascribed both to the European level and to each Member State. In regard to securing a sound antitrust system, the allocation...

This paper provides a comparative analysis of methods for the empirical ex post evaluation of merger control decisions. It develops a competition-policy oriented framework of assessment criteria for the leading evaluation methods and applies them to structural modeling and simulation,...

Since the 1970’s, there has been a progression toward market processes in nations once committed to comprehensive central economic planning. Multinational donors and individual Western countries have expended substantial resources to advise these nations about legal reforms designed to promote...

Causation is one of the most underexplored areas in antitrust law. What must a plaintiff show to connect a defendant’s conduct with anticompetitive effects? Several tests are possible, including “but for” causation, proximate cause, sole causation, reasonable connection, and increased...

An EC Green Paper in 2005 asked for comments on an array of possible reform measures aimed at encouraging private antitrust damage actions in the national courts of the EC’s member states. One of the questions the Green Paper raised was “how should damages be defined?” Should they be...

This article is the first to analyze whether cartel sanctions are optimal. The conventional wisdom is that the current level of sanctions is adequate or excessive. The article demonstrates, however, that the combined level of current United States cartel sanctions is only 9% to 21% as large as...

Antitrust policy today is an anomaly. On the one hand, antitrust is thriving internationally. On the other hand, antitrust’s influence has diminished domestically. Over the past thirty years, there have been fewer antitrust investigations and private actions. Today the Supreme Court complains...

This paper explores the issues involved in finding agreement in vertical cases, from the perspective of the antitrust laws of the EU. In borderline cases, the notion of agreement cannot comfortably be dissociated from the other conditions of application of article 101 of the Treaty on the...

This Article challenges the various jurisdictional theories that underpin the FCC’s net neutrality regulation. The assertion of jurisdiction by the FCC over any aspect of the Internet ecosystem has raised populist, congressional, and even judicial rhetoric to a crescendo and resulted in a...