Should the Government Prosecute Monopolies?

Abstract:     
In the past few years, courts and the Department of Justice have cited approvingly the Court's dicta in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP. This article analyzes why the economic thinking in Trinko is wrong, and how the Court ignores its precedent involving the Sherman Act's concerns of monopolies' political, social and ethical implications. It responds to the Court's claim that cartel behavior is easier to identify and remedy than monopolistic behavior and proposes an improvement to the Court's current rule of reason standard to reduce the risk of false positives, while enabling the antitrust agencies and courts to remedy more quickly certain monopolistic conduct.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 55

Keywords: Antitrust, Monopolies, Sherman Act, Law & Economics, Dynamic Efficiency, Innovation, Cartels, Oligopolies

JEL Classification: D42, D43, K21, L12, L40, L41, L43, 031

Accepted Paper Series