US Antitrust Law and Policy in Historical Perspective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Phillips Sawyer
Keyword(s):  
Small Businesses ◽  
Allocative Efficiency ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
The United States ◽  
Antitrust Law ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
Dominant Firms ◽  
Antitrust Legislation

The key pieces of antitrust legislation in the United States—the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914—contain broad language that has afforded the courts wide latitude in interpreting and enforcing the law. This article chronicles the judiciary’s shifting interpretations of antitrust law and policy over the past 125 years. It argues that jurists, law enforcement agencies, and private litigants have revised their approaches to antitrust to accommodate economic shocks, technological developments, and predominant economic wisdom. Over time an economic logic that prioritizes lowest consumer prices as a signal of allocative efficiency—known as the consumer welfare standard—has replaced the older political objectives of antitrust, such as protecting independent proprietors or small businesses, or reducing wealth transfers from consumers to producers. However, a new group of progressive activists has again called for revamping antitrust so as to revive enforcement against dominant firms, especially in digital markets, and to refocus attention on the political effects of antitrust law and policy. This shift suggests that antitrust may remain a contested field for scholarly and popular debate.

scholarly journals Moving Away from Consumer Welfare in the Antitrust of Digital Platforms

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
Alexander I. Kovalenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
The United States ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Antitrust Regulation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Competitive Forces

This article aims to characterize the new theoretical and methodological reversal observed today in the American antitrust regulation of digital platforms. To this end, the author retrospectively describes the history of the development of the theory and methodology of antitrust regulation in the United States. The article describes the ideas of economic structuralism of the “Harvard school”. Further, the author reveals the theoretical and methodological revolution associated with the theory of prices; describes the fundamental differences between the “Harvard” and “Chicago” schools in terms of assessing the relationship between market structure and the intensity of competition. The article reveals the formation of the doctrine of consumer welfare as the dominant one in antitrust regulation. The consequences of the application of the doctrine of consumer welfare in antitrust regulation are described: the narrowness of ideas about barriers to entry, public welfare; breadth of understanding of competitive forces; ignoring the structural and sectoral characteristics of competition; absolutization of indicators of consumer prices and output volumes. The author gives a negative assessment of the effectiveness of the application of the doctrine of consumer welfare in the antitrust regulation of digital platforms. The paper explains how the focus on consumer welfare has been used by digital platforms to generate gigantic market power. In this context, a criticism of the ideas of the Chicago School in relation to digital markets is presented. Reanimation of ideas and methods of economic structuralism in decision-making within the framework of antimonopoly regulation of monopolistic activities of digital platforms is argued.

scholarly journals Responsibility for chemical exposures: perspectives from small beauty salons and auto shops in southern metropolitan Tucson

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda A. Lee ◽  
Maia Ingram ◽  
Carolina Quijada ◽  
Andres Yubeta ◽  
Imelda Cortez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Small Businesses ◽  
Chemical Exposure ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Chemical Exposures ◽  
Study Partner ◽  
Chemical Products ◽  
Beauty Salons ◽  
Exposure Risks

Abstract Background Throughout the United States, low-wage, minority workers are disproportionately affected by occupational illnesses and injuries. Chronic exposure to hazardous chemicals at work can lead to serious illnesses, contributing to health inequities. In this article, we expand on theories of ‘responsibilization’ in an occupational health context to reveal how responsibilities for workplace chemical exposures are negotiated by workers and owners in Latinx-owned small businesses. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with a total of 22 workers and owners in auto repair shops and beauty salons – two high-risk industries – in Southern Metropolitan Tucson. Participants were asked about their insights into workplace chemical exposures and health. A qualitative analysis team with representation from all study partner organizations collectively coded and reviewed the interview data in QSR International’s NVivo 11 and identified overarching themes across the interviews. Results We identified three primary themes: 1) ambivalence toward risks in the workplace; 2) shifting responsibilities for exposure protection at work; and 3) reflections on the system behind chemical exposure risks. Participants discussed the complexities that small businesses face in reducing chemical exposures. Conclusions Through our analysis of the interviews, we examine how neoliberal occupational and environmental policies funnel responsibility for controlling chemical exposures down to individuals in small businesses with limited resources, obscuring the power structures that maintain environmental health injustices. We conclude with a call for upstream policy changes that more effectively regulate and hold accountable the manufacturers of chemical products used daily by small business workers.

scholarly journals Optimal Incentives for Patent Challenges in the Pharmaceutical Industry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Böhme ◽  
Jonas Severin Frank ◽  
Wolfgang Kerber
Keyword(s):  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Market Entry ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Antitrust Law ◽  
Patent Litigation ◽  
Weak Patents ◽  
Optimal Incentives

AbstractIn this paper, we show that a provision in antitrust law to allow patent settlements with a later market entry of generics than the date that is expected under patent litigation can increase consumer welfare. We introduce a policy parameter for determining the optimal additional period for collusion that would incentivize the challenging of weak patents and maximize consumer welfare. While in principle, later market entry leads to higher profits and lower consumer welfare, this can be more than compensated for if more patents are challenged as a result.

Racializing Crimmigration

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amada Armenta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Jail ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Local Law

Deporting “criminal aliens” has become the highest priority in American immigration enforcement. Today, most deportations are achieved through the “crimmigration” system, a term that describes the convergence of the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems. Emerging research argues that U.S. immigration enforcement is a “racial project” that subordinates and racializes Latino residents in the United States. This article examines the role of local law enforcement agencies in the racialization process by focusing on the techniques and logics that drive law enforcement practices across two agencies, I argue that local law enforcement agents racialize Latinos by punishing illegality through their daily, and sometimes mundane, practices. Investigatory traffic stops put Latinos at disproportionate risk of arrest and citation, and processing at the local jail subjects unauthorized immigrants to deportation. Although a variety of local actors sustain the deportation system, most do not see themselves as active participants in immigrant removal and they explain their behavior through a colorblind ideology. This colorblind ideology obscures and naturalizes how organizational practices and laws converge to systematically criminalize and punish Latinos in the United States.

Building Bridges Between Researchers and Police Practitioners in Small and Midsize Law Enforcement Agencies in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 104398622199988
Author(s):  
Janice Iwama ◽  
Jack McDevitt ◽  
Robert Bieniecki
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Local Police ◽  
Police Agencies

Although partnerships between researchers and police practitioners have increased over the last few decades in some of the largest police agencies in the United States, very few small agencies have engaged in a partnership with a researcher. Of the 18,000 local police agencies in the United States, small agencies with less than 25 sworn officers make up about three quarters of all police agencies. To support future collaborations between researchers and smaller police agencies, like those in Douglas County, Kansas, this article identifies challenges that researchers can address and explores how these relationships can benefit small police agencies across the United States.

Criminal Justice in an Era of Mass Deportation

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid V. Eagly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
State Level ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Collateral Consequence

After a sustained period of hypercriminalization, the United States criminal justice system is undergoing reform. Congress has reduced federal sentencing for drug crimes, prison growth is slowing, and some states are even closing prisons. Low-level crimes have been removed from criminal law books, and attention is beginning to focus on long-neglected issues such as bail and criminal court fines. Still largely overlooked in this era of ambitious reform, however, is the treatment of immigrants in the criminal justice system. An unprecedented focus on immigration enforcement targeted at “felons, not families” has resulted in a separate system of punitive treatment reserved for noncitizens, which includes crimes of migration, longer periods of pretrial detention, harsher criminal sentences, and the almost certain collateral consequence of lifetime banishment from the United States. For examples of state-level solutions to this predicament, this Essay turns to a trio of bold criminal justice reforms from California that (1) require prosecutors to consider immigration penalties in plea bargaining; (2) change the state definition of “misdemeanor” from a maximum sentence of a year to 364 days; and (3) instruct law enforcement agencies to not hold immigrants for deportation purposes unless they are first convicted of serious crimes. Together, these new laws provide an important window into how state criminal justice systems could begin to address some of the unique concerns of noncitizen criminal defendants.

scholarly journals Small Business Policy Index Traction And Movement In Rankings Of States Update: 2000 To 2016

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 259-264
Author(s):  
P. K. Shukla ◽  
Monica P. Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Rank Correlation ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Business Growth ◽  
Business Policy ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities

Given the volatile economic climate faced in the United States and globally since 2015, there is a desire by politicians in 2016 to increase state economic and business growth.  As small businesses are the main driver of business growth in state economies, focus is placed upon the policy environment of a state to encourage state level growth in entrepreneurial activities aimed at small business creation and survival.The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council an advocacy and research organization dedicated to protecting small business and promoting entrepreneurship has annually prepared a “Small Business Policy Index” that ranks states according to some of the major government-imposed or government-related costs affecting investment, entrepreneurship and business.  This study presents updated results to 2016 from an original 2013 analysis of the rankings of states on the Small Business Policy Index (SBPI) from 2000 to 2016 that focuses upon three categories of states: overall ranking gainer states, those states that are stable in ranking, and overall ranking decliner states, the percentage in each category, and conclusions.  The paper also includes a rank correlation analysis of periods of time to measure the extent of traction and mobility in the SBPI state rankings. As states vary by governor length of years in their governor term and also by term limits or not on governor terms allowed there is an analysis of impact of governor years of term on changes in SBPI ranking and an analysis of impact of governor term limits on changes in SBPI ranking.

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