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It's weird to me to see a narrow "pricing approach" towards antitrust being attributed to the Chicago School. I thought the Chicago perspective on antitrust was
by zozbot123 8y ago
It's weird to me to see a narrow "pricing approach" towards antitrust being attributed to the Chicago School. I thought the Chicago perspective on antitrust was that it should potentially be applied to markets that aren't "contestable" (i.e. have high barriers to entry) for either structural or regulatory reasons, and in particular, that well-designed regulation could be used in such cases to minimize and constrain the non-contestable portion of a complex, multi-lateral market structure (see e.g. the markets in energy, telcos and the like - IT does not seem all that different), while "carving out" new, more contestable markets that could then sustain a lesser regulatory burden. This seems quite close to the power-focused approach that the "critics" are pursuing, and it's weird that they're being characterized as anti-free-market.
- api 8y agoIt's possible that as with Keynes' advice about counter-cyclic spending the Chicago school's views on monopoly and antitrust have been distorted by politicians and lobbyists. In the case of Keynes counter-cyclic spending became "deficits don't matter, always spend more no matter what." In recessions spending goes up and in booms spending goes up. Keynes argued that governments should cut during booms to achieve something at least close to a net balance, but the cutting part is ignored.