Book Review: Antitrust Law and Economics in a Nutshell

• Author: Thomas J. Maroney,David S. Hunt
• Published date: 01 December 1977
• Date: 01 December 1977
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X7702200410
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Ernest

Gellhorn,

Antitrust

Law

and Economics in a Nutshell,

St. Paul, Minn.: \Vest Publishing Co. (1976), 405 pp.,

$6.00.

No field of law with which the reviewers

are

acquainted

seems even to

approach

antitrust

law in the number

and

variety

of publications

for

the edification of the law student,

the novice, the general

practitioner

and

even the old hand.

There

are

outlines,'

primers,'

aids to

understanding

and

the

like," not to mention a

treatise

of 15 volumes.'

In

the face of this bewildering

array,

Dean

Ernst

Gellhorn

of the Arizona

State

University

College of Law has com-

pressed

the basics of

antitrust

law and economics into a

nutshell. Anutshell, as recent law

graduates

will

attest,

is

ahandy, soft-covered, moderately-priced (even in 1977 dol-

lars)

volume which

undertakes

to explain the basic rules in

agiven

area

of the law. As both life

and

law have grown

increasingly complex, the Nutshell Series

has

proliferated,

dividing

its

subject

matter

into

narrower

topics,

treating

each

in a more sophisticated manner, while maintaining the con-

ciseness

that

characterized the originals.

Most, if not all,

students

and

practitioners

of

antitrust

law

would profit by investing a few dollars

and

hours in the

Gellhorn book.

It

offers aclear, compact

and

accurate sum-

mary

of the law-s-and who could

ask

more of a

Nutshell'

This

one, however, does offer more ·in the form of a com-

prehensive introduction to

antitrust

economics. The

author

believes

that

the responsible

antitrust

practitioner

must,

at

least, be

familiar

with

rudimentary

economic concepts. He

further

observes

that"

[TJhe

hiring

of an expert economic

consultant or witness will not discharge this responsibility;

the

specialist in

antitrust

law

must

possess an understanding

of basic price theory."

The

economic neophyte frequently views this unfamiliar

world with some

measure

of trepidation.

In

response, Dean

Gellhorn seeks to

present

basic theory in a non-threatening

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