The institutional-evolutionary antitrust model

The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative antitrust model to the mainstream model that is used in competition policy. I call it the Institutional-Evolutionary Antitrust Model. In order to construct an antitrust model one needs both empirical knowledge and considerations of how to adequately deal with norms. The analysis of competition as an evolutionary process that unfolds within legal rules provides the empirical foundation for the model. The development of the normative dimension involves the elaboration of a comparative approach. Building on those foundations the main features of the Institutional-Evolutionary Model are sketched out and it is shown that its use leads to systematically different outcomes and conclusions than the dominant antitrust ideals. JEL Classification B52. D83. K21     

Certificate-of-need in an antitrust context

Recent cases such as National Gerimedical Hospital and Gerontology Center v. Blue Cross of Kansas City have found that certificate-of-need (CON) legislation did not intend to remove antitrust considerations. This note discusses the exemptions from antitrust provided by the state action doctrine of Parker v. Brown as well as the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, both of which appear to protect provider input into the CON process. Providing information that assists decision-making must be carefully distinguished from providing data that serve the interests of physicians and hospitals.     

Physicians, unions, and antitrust

The increasing consolidation of our healthcare delivery systems and the concomitant push for perceived efficiencies, speed, and profits has laid the foundation for a renewed interest in unionization by many physicians. This Article analyzes the barriers to such unionization that are posed by the antitrust laws, and provides an analysis of how to proceed with unionization without violating those laws. The Article also analyzes the current status of physician ability to unionize, and surveys the present status of physician unions.     

The economic analysis of antitrust consents

Henry G. Manne, our friend, Mentor, and colleague, was a pioneer in the economic analysis of law. By consistently challenging the notion that existing institutions were well understood, he expanded the domain of economics to new and fertile ground. In that spirit, our goal in this article is to bring out of the shadows an institution that has thus far evaded the light of economic analysis: antitrust consents. In our view, competition authorities around the world should be asking themselves what ratio of litigation to settlement is optimal for their agency. Over the last 35 years, the United States Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice have shifted dramatically toward greater reliance upon consent decrees than upon litigation to resolve antitrust disputes. As an aid to national competition agencies considering the desirability of adopting a similar approach, we focus upon the importance of economic analysis in evaluating movement along the continuum from a law enforcement model to a regulatory model of agency behavior. We draw upon the U.S. experience to substantiate our claim that the costs associated with a shift toward the regulatory model, including the potential distortion in the development of substantive antitrust doctrine, may be under-appreciated and discernable only in the long run. We acknowledge that consent decrees can and should be an important tool in an antitrust agency’s toolkit for resolving antitrust disputes. We contend, however, that a full economic analysis of reliance primarily upon consent decrees is necessary to inform each competition agency’s strategic decision about the optimal mix of law enforcement and regulatory techniques.     

Advance price announcements and antitrust policy

This paper analyzes the competitive significance of advance price announcements. In the model, advance price announcements are used by firms to communicate private information on demand or cost. By so sharing the information, the firms are able to set their prices at more profitable levels. When the advance price announcements resolve demand uncertainty, profits rise and consumer surplus falls. Interestingly, when the advance price announcements resolve cost uncertainty, both profits and consumer welfare rise. Finally, we examine U.S. antitrust policy regarding price announcements.     

论班轮公会反垄断豁免法

对世界上主要航运国家相关立法及国际公约的规定进行了比较研究,详细分析了班轮公会哪些行动和相关协议享有反垄断法豁免权以及其附加义务,最后对中国正在制定的《航运法》提出了相关立法建议。     

反垄断法的域外适用

许多学者主张 ,我国应以效果原则为依据 ,建立反垄断法的域外适用制度。但美国反垄断法的历史表明 ,效果原则有许多弊端。美、德、欧洲法院、欧共体委员会的实践表明 ,需要采用多种方法对效果原则进行限制 ,并应借鉴冲突法的方法 ,尽可能采用能体现真实联系的连结因素 ,而以效果原则作为补充 ,从而避免单纯的效果原则所产生的扩大本国反垄断法适用的倾向。     

Hospital mergers and antitrust: an economic analysis

The hospital industry has recently experienced substantial merger activity. This paper examines several actual and proposed hospital mergers to determine the extent of competition in the affected markets and the effect these mergers may have on competition. Our focus is on mergers between hospitals in the same market. We define the relevant product and geographic market for hospitals, then develop criteria for evaluating hospital mergers and analyze several merger cases using these criteria. We conclude that these mergers threaten the competition that exists in most of the markets discussed, and that the claimed efficiency justification for mergers is not convincing.     

A note on antitrust damages and leniency programs

The European Commission has in recent years initiated an effort to facilitate private actions for damages in cartel cases. This paper demonstrates in a stylized game-theoretic framework that an increase in antitrust damages can be pro-collusive when a leniency program is already in place. The result holds true even if antitrust authorities are allowed to re-shape their leniency program in reaction to the higher damage level. Larger damage payments imply lower incentives to self-report if damages are not fully encompassed by the leniency program; in effect, the program has to be more generous to enforce self-reporting. But if antitrust authorities are not allowed to offer cash rewards to whistle-blowers, the sufficient level of generosity might be unattainable.     

Incomplete antitrust laws and private actions for damages

Our purpose in this paper is to identify some of the implications that derive from the incompleteness of antitrust laws. Since with regard to certain anticompetitive conduct, the law remains substantially incomplete up to the first relevant court judgment, in terms of policy it is worth concentrating on stand-alone claimants who, not relying on earlier judgments, face very high evidentiary requirements, while generating large positive (information) externalities for potential follow-on claimants. The paper is structured as follows. In Sect. 2, we introduce the notion of incompleteness of the laws and address the process of production of evidence in antitrust lawsuits. Sect. 3 provides a survey of EU national case law and our summary of the results puts emphasis on incomplete laws, evidentiary requirements and stand-alone lawsuits. Sect. 4 presents a framework model to distinguish the decision-making processes for stand-alone and follow-on claimants in the presence of incomplete antitrust laws. In Sect. 5 we introduce a vector autoregressive model that we test with reference to the US antitrust law enforcement regime. Sect. 6 discusses some policy options and concludes the paper.