The Political Economy of the Decline of Antitrust Enforcement in the United States

Filippo Lancieri, Eric A. Posner and Luigi Zingales

No 30326, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Antitrust enforcement in the United States has declined since the 1960s. Building on several new datasets, we argue that this decline did not reflect a popular demand for weaker enforcement or any other kind of democratic sanction. The decline was engineered by unelected regulators and judges who, with a few exceptions, did not express skepticism about antitrust law in confirmation hearings. We find little evidence that academic ideas played an important role in the decline of antitrust enforcement except where they coincided with the interests of big business, which appears to have exercised influence behind the scenes.

JEL-codes: K21 L40 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-his, nep-law, nep-pol and nep-reg
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