Abstract
Antitrust enforcement in the United States dates back over 100 years. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Act to proscribe monopolies and attempts to monopolize. This law was supplemented with the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Acts of 1914 (expanding the scope of antitrust and creating the Federal Trade Commission), the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 (requiring manufacturers to offer the same set of prices to all distributors), the Cellar-Kefauver Act of 1950 (tightening merger enforcement) and the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act of 1976 (requiring the government to be notified prior to major mergers). Moreover, the various laws have been interpreted in the courts to create case precedents that have the effect of law2. Finally, the states have added their own antitrust laws to the books.
The analyses and conclusions contained in this chapter are those of the authors and do not purport to represent the views of the Federal trade Commission, any individual Commissioner or the position of any Commission Bureau. The authors would like to thank the Federal Trade Commission for its willingness to allow its employees to participate on this project. We also thank Susan Kleit for production assistance.
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Coate, M.B., Kleit, A.N. (1996). Introduction: The Economics of the Antitrust Process. In: Coate, M.B., Kleit, A.N. (eds) The Economics of the Antitrust Process. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy Series, vol 22. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1397-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1397-7_1
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