Why does the Consumer Welfare Standard Work? Matching Methods to Markets

The appropriate goals of antitrust have again became the subject of debate, with some critics questioning whether an economics-based goal (the consumer welfare standard) is still relevant. In our view, economic reasoning provided the foundation for the courts’ adoption of the consumer welfare standard as the framework through which to evaluate antitrust enforcement, and it has also provided the tools used to apply the standard to specific markets. In this paper, we maintain that consumer welfa