When Economics Met Antitrust: The Second Chicago School and the Economization of Antitrust Law

Patrice Bougette, Marc Deschamps and Frédéric Marty

Enterprise & Society, 2015, vol. 16, issue 2, 313-353

Abstract: In this article, the authors interrogate legal and economic history to analyze the process by which the Chicago School of Antitrust emerged in the 1950s and became dominant in the United States. They show that the extent to which economic objectives and theoretical views shaped the inception of antitrust law. After establishing the minor influence of economics in the promulgation of U.S. competition law, they highlight U.S. economists’ caution toward antitrust until the Second New Deal and analyze the process by which the Chicago School developed a general and coherent framework for competition policy. They rely mainly on the seminal and programmatic work of Director and Levi (1956) and trace how this theoretical paradigm became collective—that is, the “economization” process in U.S. antitrust. Finally, the authors discuss the implications and possible pitfalls of such a conversion to economics-led antitrust enforcement.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: When economics met antitrust: The second Chicago School and the economization of antitrust law (2015)
Working Paper: When Economics met Antitrust: The Second Chicago School and the Economization of Antitrust Law (2015)
Working Paper: When economics met antitrust: The second Chicago School and the economization of antitrust law (2015)
Working Paper: When Economics Met Antitrust: The Second Chicago School and the Economization of Antitrust Law (2014)
Working Paper: When Economics Met Antitrust: The Second Chicago School and the Economization of Antitrust Law (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:entsoc:v:16:y:2015:i:02:p:313-353_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Enterprise & Society from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().