The antitrust experiment in America /

This volume collects eight of Dewey's (economics, Columbia U) essays on antitrust economics: five have appeared elsewhere and two have been presented at symposia. The longest essay (a third of the volume) is new (yet it has marked similarities with his summer 1990 article in The Antitrust Bulletin). This essay sketches the 100-year history of US antitrust activity and in a sense updates some material in the author's Monopoly in Economics and Law (1959). He covers some standard topics, e.g., welfare, costs and profits, collusion, concentration, and the Reagan years. Dewey is skeptical of much in antitrust policy as well as of much of academics' critiques of that policy. One can admire Dewey's arguments however, without being convinced of all of his positions. The writing is always clear, stimulating, and reasonable, and the essays are accessible to undergraduates. The short shelf on US antitrust should include this volume along with other notables: Robert H. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox, (CH, Sep'78), Franklin M. Fisher, John McGowan, and Joen E. Greenwood, Folded, Spindled, and Multilated (CH, Oct'83), Richard A. Posner, Antitrust Law (CH, Jan'77), A.D. Neale and D.G. Goyder, The Antitrust Laws of the United States of America, (3rd ed., 1980; 1st ed., CH, Mar'71), Oliver Williamson, Antitrust Economics (CH, Jul'87). -R. A. Miller, Wesleyan University