Book Reviews

• Author: Corwin D. Edwards
• Published date: 01 June 1975
• Date: 01 June 1975
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X7502000211
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

BOOK

REVIEWS

437

Herbert

Schmidbauer, Allokation, Technischer Fortschritt

und

Wettbewerbspolitik, Tubingen:

J.

C. B. Mohr (1974),

670 pp., 75 German marks.

This book is conceived as an examination of the theoretical

foundations of competition policy in concepts of complete

competition or "dynamic" competition

and

in concepts of

market

power.

It

examines most of the relevant economic

writing

in German

and

in English

and

also much of the re-

cent systematic

research

that

is focused

upon

controversies

that

have

arisen

in

that

writing.

The

result

is a critique am-

bitious in scope

and

often

penetrating

in analysis.

The opening pages

and

some of the exposition

later

tend

to mislead the

reader:

to persuade him

that

the discussion

offers a sufficient basis

for

appraisal

of the

present

content

of the

relevant

laws of the United

States

and

Germany

and

of suggestions about modifications of those laws.

What

is said,

however, falls

far

short

of

what

is needed

for

such

appraisals.

The book is focused, like much of the

literature

that

it

dis-

cusses,

upon

the double question whether

or

not

competition

policy does

(or

can) promote optimal allocation of resources

and

whether or

not

it

does

(or

can)

promote

technical-eco-

nomic progress.

Though such questions

are

often conspicuous in

appraisals

of existing laws by economists, they have little to do

with

applications of these laws. The

statutes

are

designed to curb

specified types of

restraint

of trade,

and

many

of these can

be considered objectionable whether

or

not

there

has

been

clear definition of the

broad

goals of competition policy.

Even

where the

statutory

language invokes competition

as

alegal

standard,

the

law is applied,

not

on the

theory

that

the case is a

particular

instance of

an

economy-wide gen-

eralization,

but

by

applying

to

particular

actions

or

particu-

lar

economic

structures

criteria

of

legality

set

forth

in the

statute;

and

even where these

criteria

leave considerable dis-

cretion to those who

apply

them

(as

in the use of the

"rule