Title: Economics Roundtable Testimony before the Antitrust Modernization Commission
Abstract: Thanks very much for the opportunity to appear here today. I am Daniel Rubinfeld, the Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law and Professor of Economics at the University of California Berkeley. I have taught at Berkeley since 1983, and during that time I have served twice as Associate Dean and Chair of the Law School’s Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. I have previously served as Co-Editor of the International Review of Law and Economics, and am currently the President of the American Law and Economics Association. I have long been interested in industrial organization, antitrust, and competition policy. However, my writing focused on antitrust policy during and following my years as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics (June 1997 through December 1998). I have also been active as a consultant on antitrust issues generally and on mergers specifically, serving on numerous occasions as an expert witness for the Antitrust Division, the Federal Trade Commission, and private parties. I have also lectured extensively for the Federal Judicial Center on the use of statistical methods by the courts. My recent teaching has focused on antitrust law and economics and the use of quantitative methods in law. The Commission has posed several questions relevant to the use of economics in merger analysis. In the testimony that follows, I offer commentary on a number of those questions. My thoughts rely heavily on my own personal experiences as an antitrust enforcer, as a consultant, and as a teacher. They also draw heavily on a number of articles that I have authored or co-authored in the past decade. With respect to empirical methods generally, I am referring to Baker and Rubinfeld (1999); with respect to the Merger Guidelines, Rubinfeld (2000), and with respect to merger simulation, I rely on Epstein and Rubinfeld (2001, 2004). Following some initial commentary about the Merger Guidelines, I have organized my comments into three substantive topics, market definition, market power, and anticompetitive effects.
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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