About the book

Modern Economic Analysis and Antitrust Law: A Guide presents a modern economics approach to antitrust law. It expands upon and supplements traditional legal analysis of antitrust law and policy. It does so by analyzing antitrust legal standards and case law through the lenses of industrial organization economics and decision theory. The work is intended to be a comprehensive introductory guide for students, practitioners, and anyone else interested in learning the core of modern antitrust economics. Understanding the economics of antitrust and decision theory and applying that reasoning to specific cases and issues are critical steps for successfully studying and practicing antitrust law and policy. It treats the evolution of antitrust doctrine and policy as an interaction of the antitrust statutes, economic analysis, political economic ideology, and decision theory.

As a guide, the cases are organized by the anticompetitive mechanisms of collusive and exclusionary conduct rather than by the relevant section of the Sherman Act or Clayton Act. Part I sets out the basic analytic building blocks of industrial organization economics and decision theory. It includes a technical economic appendix and a section on the non-technical basics of Bayesian decision analysis. Part II examines collusive conduct and effects, where collusion encompasses coordination. It provides economic and legal analysis of oligopoly interaction, the agreement requirement, and the rule of reason analysis of those agreements. Part III focuses on the economic and legal analysis of exclusionary conduct. Part IV analyzes the law and competitive effects of mergers.

The economic analysis in this volume involves modern industrial organization and its economic models — imperfect competition, strategic behavior by dominant firms and oligopolists, imperfect contracts, dynamic competitive interaction, and innovation — not simply perfect competition versus monopoly. It takes into account the competitive effects on workers and other suppliers as well as consumers and other customers. The overall economic and decision theory approach is best
characterized as “post-Chicago” rather than Chicago-school. However, it recognizes and reflects the contributions of Richard Posner and other Chicago-school economic and legal scholars. Like every scholarly endeavor, it stands on the shoulders of the earlier giants. The analysis is also applied to several Neo-Brandeisian concerns shared by post-Chicagoans. The individual chapters will soon be made available for download separately. A low-priced paperback book version will also be made available.

Praise for the book

“This wide-ranging survey of antitrust law is deeply informed by modern developments in economics. To understand how antitrust issues should be analyzed today, there is no better guide than Steve Salop, the intellectual leader of post-Chicago antitrust, and this monograph.”

Jonathan B. Baker, Professor of Law Emeritus, American University, author of The Antitrust Paradigm: Restoring a Competitive Economy, and former Director, Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission

“Who better to take the reader on a complete guided tour of the realm of antitrust economics? If antitrust law today uses “modern” economic methods and insights, it’s due in no small part to Professor Salop himself. It’s hard to think of anyone who has done more to make antitrust what it is today. Every major area of US antitrust owes a debt to his work; some, like monopolization and merger analysis, have been profoundly shaped by his ideas.

In this book, Professor Salop brings a lifetime of analysis, teaching, and practical experience to bear on the entire antitrust project. The result is educational, provocative, and fresh, with something for every reader, from the new law student to the veteran litigator. It will be especially valuable to those who wonder whether antitrust’s best future should or could lie away from economics: it is a compelling demonstration of the power and promise of economic reasoning to guide antitrust cases to the right results. 

Many of the best practitioners, enforcers, and scholars in our field were lucky enough to sit in his classes and learn from him directly; the rest of us should read this book without delay.”

Daniel Francis, Associate Professor of Law, New York University School of Law

“Steve Salop is one of the principal architects of the modern economic analysis of exclusionary conduct, including vertical mergers, and an influential contributor to antitrust economics more generally. This monograph locates his work in the broader context of antitrust and will be an essential resource for students, policymakers, and practitioners.”

Andrew I. Gavil, Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law

“In this book, Salop offers something remarkable: a text that is sufficiently deep to be useful to experts while nevertheless remaining accessible to students and nonexperts. It does not avoid complex topics, but uses Salop’s characteristic intuition to make them digestible to readers of all levels. I often consult the book for my own research purposes, and I make it available to my antitrust students as a supplement. I highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in antitrust.”

Erik Hovenkamp, Professor of Law, Cornell University Law School