Some Comments on the Other Contributions to This Antitrust-Policy-Focused Issue

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X231200936
• Author: Richard S. Markovits
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X231200936

The Antitrust Bulletin

2023, Vol. 68(4) 657 –665

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/0003603X231200936

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Article

Some Comments on the Other

Contributions to This Antitrust-

Policy-Focused Issue

Richard S. Markovits*

Abstract

This response to the other Articles in this issue acknowledges the importance of some of the

obstacles to sound antitrust-policy analysis that others find insurmountable but contends that they

can and must be overcome, explains why I think some critiques of my approach are ill-specified and

indefensible, clarifies some oligopolistic-conduct-related concepts my study uses about which one

contributor poses questions, restates in my terminology the arguments of two contributions that

delineate and evaluate particular E.U. antitrust policies and comments on some of the normative

claims these two articles consider, and expresses my appreciation of the positive book review that

two scholars have supplied.

Keywords

competition theory, economic-efficiency analysis, egalitarianism, liberalism

I want to thank the other contributors to this issue. I will comment first on the two contributions that

take positions on antitrust-policy analysis in general or on particular features of my approach to anti-

trust-policy analysis, then on the paper that focuses on my position on contrived-oligopolistic conduct,

next on the two European antitrust-policy studies, and finally on the general review of my study.

The respective authors of the first two papers just referenced have law degrees and Ph.D.s in eco-

nomics. Both are U.S.-law-school professors.

Prof. Harrison’s paper1 argues for three conclusions: (1) It is extremely difficult and perhaps impos-

sible to assess the economic efficiency of an exemplar of antitrust-policy-coverable conduct or an

exemplar of an antitrust policy, (2) it may be even more difficult to assess the moral desirability of any

such conduct or policy, and (3) efforts like mine to develop an ex ante economically-efficient or mor-

ally-desirable protocol for assessing antitrust policies and efforts like mine to identify antitrust policies

that would be morally desirable will inevitably fail. I will address each of these claims in turn.

*The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Richard S. Markovits, John B. Connally Chair in Law, Texas Law School, 727 East Dean Keeton St., The University of Texas

at Austin, Austin, TX 78717, USA.

Email: rmarkovits@law.utexas.edu

1200936ABXXXX10.1177/0003603X231200936The Antitrust BulletinMarkovits

research-article2023

1. Jeffrey L. Harrison, Confessions of a Nonbeliever: Comments on the Search for Antitrust’s Normative Foundations, 68

Antitrust Bull. 590 (2023).