A government wanting to promote an efficient allocation of resources as measured by the total surplus, should strategically delegate to its competition authority a welfare standard with a bias in favour of consumers. A consumer bias means that some welfare increasing mergers will be blocked....

This article examines antitrust analysis when one of the possible subject products of an antitrust or merger is ordinarily offered at a zero price. It shows that businesses often offer a product for free because it increases the overall profits they can earn from selling the free product and a...

In dealing with telecom operator and internet mergers in the late 1990s the European Commission adopted a pessimistic view of competition based on the then emerging theory of network effects. This paper takes a short and critical look at the Commission's use of network effects theory, and its...

Neil Averitt and Robert Lande have for some time been writing about consumer choice as a new paradigm for antitrust. In this comment, I both praise and extend the consumer choice paradigm and provide concrete examples of both cutting edge and familiar antitrust issues where consumer choice can...

Is monopoly the inevitable market outcome for a network industry without regulation? Policy related to network communications industries historically has been based on the assumption that the characteristics of these industries will lead to high concentration, and ultimately monopoly. However,...

This paper presents an updated narrative of the history of the global lysine cartel and the legal consequences for its members in the United States. The story focuses especially upon the role of economists in calculating the size of overcharges and how the estimates can affect the decisions of...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the efforts of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to detect, indict, and deter horizontal collusion during 1990-2007 and offers policy suggestions likely to improve that enforcement. Division leaders emphasize that collusion is the...

International cartelists today face antitrust investigations and possible fines in a score of national and supranational jurisdictions. This paper aims at providing quantitative information about the size and impacts of international cartel activity in Asia and uses a sample of modern private...

Open almost any news source, or simply turn on the program guide of your own television, and the explosive proliferation of sports telecasts is quickly evident. The amount exhibitors pay to sports leagues has reached dizzying heights, in large part due to high demand and the unique, unrecorded...

This article analyzes the first 22 cartel decisions of the European Commission under its 2006 revised fining Guidelines. I find that the severity of the cartel fines relative to affected sales is about double that of the fines decided under the previous 1998 Guidelines. Severity varies only...