SHOULD TECHNOLOGY CHOICE BE A CONCERN OF ANTITRUST POLICY?

S.J Liebowitz, and Stephen E Margolis

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 1996)

One basic justification for antitrust is that monopoly practices are socially harmful because they decrease total surplus. There is disagreement over whether economic efficiency is now or ever was the goal of antitrust, and there are scores of disagreements about exactly what practices result in monopoly inefficiencies. But where the economic rationale for antitrust is considered, that rationale invariably has to do with welfare losses that follow from behavior related to restricted outputs and elevated prices.