Vertical Restraints and Antitrust Policy: A Reaction to Cooper, Froeb, O’Brien, and Vita

Ralph Winter, Sep 01, 2005

Cooper, Froeb, OBrien, and Vita argue that (1) economic theory, especially post-Chicago theory, provides little in the way of unambiguous predictions of when vertical restraints are pro-competitive versus anticompetitive, forcing antitrust decisions to rely mainly on prior empirical evidence rather than case-specific facts; and (2) prior evidence indicates that vertical restraints are unlikely to harm consumers. Antitrust policy, therefore, should be lenient towards th