Antitrust

For as long as there have been governments, they have intervened in the operation of markets. Those interventions have almost invariably limited the ability of firms to compete freely, such as by limiting the time and place that businesses can operate or by imposing occupational licensing requirements. But there is a small category of cases in which the impetus for governmental intervention is the advancement, not the restriction, of competition. Such efforts can be partially evaluated by their effectiveness, but their justification must ultimately lie in the end they are designed to serve—competition—an end whose definition, much less value, is far from settled. This class will primarily study American efforts to prevent the private subversion of free competition, with some coverage of similar efforts in other legal systems, particularly the European Union. In addition to analysis of the statutes and case law, we will consider the history of antitrust regulation and the economic assumptions that drive much of its application. Fortunately, the applicable economic concepts are not complicated, and special effort will be made to introduce them to those students who have no background in economics.