Donald F. Turner at the Antitrust Division: A Reconsideration of Merger Policy in the 1960s

Abstract

When viewed through the lens of current practice, antitrust policy in the 1960s appears to be economically irrational. However, a closer look at Donald F. Turner’s tenure as head of the Antitrust Division from 1965 to 1968 suggests otherwise. When Turner became Assistant Attorney General (AAG) fifty years ago, he was the nation’s foremost expert on antitrust law and policy. A Harvard Law School professor with a J.D. from Yale and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, Turner was the author of several scholarly articles on antitrust and co-author of the leading antitrust treatise of the time. As AAG, Turner took a thoroughly modern approach to merger policy, relying on economic theory and empirics to formulate a rules-based approach to policy that focused on promoting economic rather than broader social ends. If elements of Turner’s merger policy appear to be obsolete today, it is not because his policy was economically irrational; rather, subsequent developments in economics rendered certain assumptions underlying his policy untenable. Indeed, a review of Turner's tenure as AAG suggests he played a key role in bringing economic rationality to merger policy, and antitrust policy more generally.

Keywords: Donald Turner, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, merger policy, antitrust policy

JEL Classification: K21, L40