Department of Justice Antitrust Enforcement, 1955-1997: An Empirical Study

Abstract:     
This is an empirical study of Department of Justice (DOJ) enforcement of the antitrust laws. Its purpose is fourfold:

1.To update Posner's study "A Statistical Study of Antitrust Enforcement" (Posner, 1970, pp. 365-419).

2.To provide consistent and comparable measures of antitrust enforcement effort by the Department of Justice.

3.To report these measurements in a concise and systematic way in order to encourage empirical studies of antitrust issues.

4.To explore some implications for antitrust issues.

The purpose is to present the overall historical record of DOJ antitrust activity as well as some patterns in that history. More detailed analysis is left for future work.

The following information for cases undertaken by the DOJ are reported: number of cases, choice of civil or criminal remedies, alleged violations, corporate officials prosecuted, won-loss record, civil and criminal sanctions imposed, and length of the proceedings. The principal source of data is the CCH Trade Regulation Reporter, commonly referred to as the CCH Bluebook which contains brief summaries of all DOJ antitrust cases in order of their filing.

Keywords: Antitrust, Enforcement, Department of Justice, Empirical, Law and Economics

JEL Classifications: K14, K21, K42, L40, L50

Accepted Paper Series