Book contents
- Reforming Antitrust
- Reforming Antitrust
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Antitrust Today
- Part II The Case for Change
- Part III Antitrust Reform
- 7 Taking a Finger Off the Scale
- 8 Rethinking the Consumer-Welfare Standard
- 9 The Antitrust Evolution
- Conclusion Key Recommendations
- Index
8 - Rethinking the Consumer-Welfare Standard
from Part III - Antitrust Reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2021
- Reforming Antitrust
- Reforming Antitrust
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Antitrust Today
- Part II The Case for Change
- Part III Antitrust Reform
- 7 Taking a Finger Off the Scale
- 8 Rethinking the Consumer-Welfare Standard
- 9 The Antitrust Evolution
- Conclusion Key Recommendations
- Index
Summary
Some reformists, however, view a single-minded focus on buyers as the root of today’s problems. On their account, it obscures economic phenomena that matter to sound antitrust policy. They argue that a laser-focus on consumers blinds enforcers to the harms of zero-price, exponentially scaling platforms, and misdiagnoses accumulations of buyer power as efficiencies rather than phenomena that distort supply markets. Indeed, for those in the anti-monopoly movement, low prices are the enemy. Hence, they champion a normative benchmark more in tune with their vision of atomistic market structures that limit scale economies.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reforming Antitrust , pp. 250 - 268Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021