Areeda, Chicago, and Antitrust Injury: Economic Efficiency and Legal Process

• Date: 01 December 1996
• Published date: 01 December 1996
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X9604100408
• Subject Matter: Article

The Antitrust BulletinlWinter 1996

Areeda, Chicago, and antitrust

injury: economic efficiency

and legal process

BY WILLIAM H. PAGE*

I.

Introduction

909

Much has been written about the influence of the Chicago school

on the development of antitrust law over the past two decades. 1

Although the Chicago analysis obviously affected the Supreme

*J. Will Young Professor of Law, Mississippi College School of

Law.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I would like to thank Roger Blair, Craig Callen, Her-

bert

Hovenkamp,

and

John Lopatka

for

helpful comments on earlier

drafts, and Mississippi College forfinancial support.

See, e.g., Michael S. Jacobs, An Essay on the Normative Founda-

tions

of

Antitrust Economics, 74 N.C. L.

REV.

219 (1995); William H.

Page, Legal Realism and the Shaping

of

Modern Antitrust, 44 EMORY L.J.

1(1995)

[hereinafter

Page, Legal Realism];

William

H. Page, The

Chicago School and the Evolution

of

Antitrust: Characterization, Anti-

trust Injury, and Evidentiary Sufficiency, 75 VA. L.

REV.

1221 (1989)

[hereinafter Page, Chicago School].

©1996 by Federal LegalPublications. Inc.

910

The antitrust bulletin

Court's reasoning in cases like Sylvania»Northwest Wholesale

Stationers

J

Matsushita/

and Brooke GroupJother influences

prevailed in cases like

Maricopa

sNCAA,7 and

Kodak»

What

accounts for the

Court's

acceptance of certain features

of

the

Chicago

paradigm and its rejection

of

others? In this article,

I argue that the work of Phillip Areeda is central to a proper reso-

lution of this question. Areeda's body of scholarship and that of

the Chicago school are the twin pillars of contemporary antitrust."

Indeed,

by some

objective

measures,

Areeda's

influence

on

antitrust law in recent years has been greater than Chicago's.l?

2Continental TV v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 433 U.S. 36 (1977).

3Northwest

Wholesale

Stationers, Inc. v.

Pacific

Stationery

&

Printing Co., 472 U.S. 284 (1985).

4Matsushita Elec. Indus. Corp. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574

(1986).

5Brooke Group Ltd. v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 509

U.S. 209 (1993).

6Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Soc'y, 457 U.S. 332 (1982).

7National Collegiate Athletic Ass'n v. Board of Regents, 468 U.S.

85 (1984).

8Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S.

451 (1992). Kodak

spawned

numerous speculations about

Chicago's

demise. See, e.g., Lawrence T. Festa, III, Comment, Eastman Kodak Co.

v. Image Technical Services, Inc.: The Decline and Fall

of

the Chicago

EmpireZ, 68

NOTRE

DAME

L.

REV.

619 (1993); Robert H. Lande, Chicago

Takes It on the Chin: Imperfect Information Could

Playa

Crucial Role in

the Post-Kodak World, 62 ANTITRUST L.J. 193 (1993).

9Andrew I. Gavil, Teaching Antitrust

Law

in Its Second Century:

In Search

of

the Ultimate Antitrust Casebook, 66 N.Y.U. L.

REV.

189,

201 (1991) (Areeda's "impact on the direction of antitrust is at least com-

parable to that of the Chicago School").

10 Over the past decade, Areeda has been cited in the law reviews on

antitrust issues about the same number of times as Richard Posner, and

slightly more than Robert Bork. Result of search

of

WESTLAW "Journal

and Law Reviews" database for "[name] IP antitrust &date(after 1984)."

In the courts, the differences are greater. Courts have cited Areeda on

antitrust issues 520 times, significantly more frequently than Bork (145)

or Posner (440). Results of search of WESTLA W "Federal Antitrust and