University:
University College London
Course:
LAWS0222 | Competition Law and Consumer Protection
Academic year:

2024
Views:

373

Pages:

2
Author:

Nam B.

Antitrust Law, the Meanings of Market Power, and the Contingency of the Law Presented by: Mrs. Phillips-Sawyer Date: 5 April 2023 Key Ideas: Framing - This is a moment of renewed political interest in antitrust law as a vehicle to protect or enhance democracy. • Or, to help reconcile tensions within (liberal) democratic capitalism - Antitrust law is fundamentally about exercises of market power. - Revising or reviving antitrust law will require a reconsideration of the problem of market power. Key Ideas: Organization & Analysis - GOAL: To historicize the idea of market power since 1940s and to explain its influence on antitrust law - • Keep the existing periodization, but ... • Recharacterize how we think about each era by emphasizing exclusion METHOD OF INQUIRY: • Antitrust objectives are shaped by economic theories and political motivations. • Social science knowledge seeks to diagnose those real-world problems and present workable prescriptions. • The diagnosis and prescription delimit the means considered appropriate to intervene. Antitrust Eras within Democratic Capitalism - 1940 to 1974, the S-C-P Era • Response to Great Depression and WWII: reorientation of liberal democratic capitalism • Harvard School of industrial organization provided knowledge base  Dominated by concern about industry concentration necessarily leading to anticompetitive conduct and poorer economic performance [Bain] - 1974 to the present, the Modern Era • Response to declining competitiveness, rising inflation, and creeping distrust of Gov't • Chicago-Harvard "double helix"  Market power not threatening in and of itself. Focus shifts to conduct and prices [Stigler]  Administrability of legal rules, and acceptance of error cost analysis [Areeda] - Twenty-First Century, an Inflection Point • Response to increased market concentration, digital platforms; falling labor share Post-Chicago: exclusion by raising rivals costs • New Brandeis Movement: same, plus bringing democracy back in