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Antitrust Law
When it was first published a quarter of a century ago, Richard Posner's exposition and defense of an economic approach to antitrust law was a jeremiad against the intellectual disarray that then characterized the field. As other perspectives on antitrust law have fallen away, Posner's book has played a major role in transforming the field of antitrust law into a body of economically rational principles largely in accord with the ideas set forth in the first edition. Today's antitrust professionals may disagree on specific practices and rules, but most litigators, prosecutors, judges, and scholars agree that the primary goal of antitrust laws should be to promote economic welfare, and that economic theory should be used to determine how well business practices conform to that goal.
In this thoroughly revised edition, Posner explains the economic approach to new generations of lawyers and students. He updates and amplifies his approach as it applies to the developments, both legal and economic, in the antitrust field since 1976. The "new economy," for example, has presented a host of difficult antitrust questions, and in an entirely new chapter, Posner explains how the economic approach can be applied to new industries such as software manufacturers, Internet service providers, and those that provide communications equipment and services.
"The antitrust laws are here to stay," Posner writes, "and the practical question is how to administer them better-more rationally, more accurately, more expeditiously, more efficiently." This fully revised classic will continue to be the standard work in the field.
In this thoroughly revised edition, Posner explains the economic approach to new generations of lawyers and students. He updates and amplifies his approach as it applies to the developments, both legal and economic, in the antitrust field since 1976. The "new economy," for example, has presented a host of difficult antitrust questions, and in an entirely new chapter, Posner explains how the economic approach can be applied to new industries such as software manufacturers, Internet service providers, and those that provide communications equipment and services.
"The antitrust laws are here to stay," Posner writes, "and the practical question is how to administer them better-more rationally, more accurately, more expeditiously, more efficiently." This fully revised classic will continue to be the standard work in the field.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1976
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About the author
Richard A. Posner
129 books182 followersRichard Posner is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Following his graduation from Harvard Law School, Judge Posner clerked for Justice William J. Brennan Jr. From 1963 to 1965, he was assistant to Commissioner Philip Elman of the Federal Trade Commission. For the next two years he was assistant to the solicitor general of the United States. Prior to going to Stanford Law School in 1968 as Associate Professor, Judge Posner served as general counsel of the President's Task Force on Communications Policy. He first came to the Law School in 1969, and was Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law prior to his appointment in 1981 as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where he presided until his retirement on September 2, 2017. He was the chief judge of the court from 1993 to 2000.
Judge Posner has written a number of books, including Economic Analysis of Law (7th ed., 2007), The Economics of Justice (1981), Law and Literature (3rd ed. 2009), The Problems of Jurisprudence (1990), Cardozo: A Study in Reputation (1990), The Essential Holmes (1992), Sex and Reason (1992), Overcoming Law (1995), The Federal Courts: Challenge and Reform (1996), Law and Legal Theory in England and America (1996), The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory (1999), Antitrust Law (2d ed. 2001), Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy (2003), Catastrophe: Risk and Response (2004), Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11 (2005), How Judges Think (2008), and A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression (2009), as well as books on the Clinton impeachment and Bush v. Gore, and many articles in legal and economic journals and book reviews in the popular press. He has taught administrative law, antitrust, economic analysis of law, history of legal thought, conflict of laws, regulated industries, law and literature, the legislative process, family law, primitive law, torts, civil procedure, evidence, health law and economics, law and science, and jurisprudence. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Legal Studies and (with Orley Ashenfelter) the American Law and Economics Review. He is an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and he was the President of the American Law and Economics Association from 1995 to 1996 and the honorary President of the Bentham Club of University College, London, for 1998. He has received a number of awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Award in Law from the University of Virginia in 1994, the Marshall-Wythe Medallion from the College of William and Mary in 1998, the 2003 Research Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, also in 2003 the John Sherman Award from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Learned Hand Medal for Exellence in Federal Jurisprudence from the Federal bar Council in 2005, and, also in 2005, the Thomas C. Schelling Award from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Following his graduation from Harvard Law School, Judge Posner clerked for Justice William J. Brennan Jr. From 1963 to 1965, he was assistant to Commissioner Philip Elman of the Federal Trade Commission. For the next two years he was assistant to the solicitor general of the United States. Prior to going to Stanford Law School in 1968 as Associate Professor, Judge Posner served as general counsel of the President's Task Force on Communications Policy. He first came to the Law School in 1969, and was Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law prior to his appointment in 1981 as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where he presided until his retirement on September 2, 2017. He was the chief judge of the court from 1993 to 2000.
Judge Posner has written a number of books, including Economic Analysis of Law (7th ed., 2007), The Economics of Justice (1981), Law and Literature (3rd ed. 2009), The Problems of Jurisprudence (1990), Cardozo: A Study in Reputation (1990), The Essential Holmes (1992), Sex and Reason (1992), Overcoming Law (1995), The Federal Courts: Challenge and Reform (1996), Law and Legal Theory in England and America (1996), The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory (1999), Antitrust Law (2d ed. 2001), Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy (2003), Catastrophe: Risk and Response (2004), Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11 (2005), How Judges Think (2008), and A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression (2009), as well as books on the Clinton impeachment and Bush v. Gore, and many articles in legal and economic journals and book reviews in the popular press. He has taught administrative law, antitrust, economic analysis of law, history of legal thought, conflict of laws, regulated industries, law and literature, the legislative process, family law, primitive law, torts, civil procedure, evidence, health law and economics, law and science, and jurisprudence. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Legal Studies and (with Orley Ashenfelter) the American Law and Economics Review. He is an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and he was the President of the American Law and Economics Association from 1995 to 1996 and the honorary President of the Bentham Club of University College, London, for 1998. He has received a number of awards, including the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Award in Law from the University of Virginia in 1994, the Marshall-Wythe Medallion from the College of William and Mary in 1998, the 2003 Research Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, also in 2003 the John Sherman Award from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Learned Hand Medal for Exellence in Federal Jurisprudence from the Federal bar Council in 2005, and, also in 2005, the Thomas C. Schelling Award from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 20, 2023
Richard Posner is brilliant and open-minded. He has changed his mind on a lot. I admire him for that.
But this is one area where he is sticking to a discredited approach to too great a degree, even in the updated edition. Perhaps because his own work was so pivotal.
The wildly successful effort to circumscribe what is considered in antitrust has been extremely damaging to the people of the US, and even most corporations. Consider instead "The Curse of Bigness" by Tim Wu. Listen to the recent podcast on antitrust in Capitalisn't (by U. of Chicago economics professor Luigi Zingales) and Elizabeth Warren's speech "America's Monopoly Problem".
But this is one area where he is sticking to a discredited approach to too great a degree, even in the updated edition. Perhaps because his own work was so pivotal.
The wildly successful effort to circumscribe what is considered in antitrust has been extremely damaging to the people of the US, and even most corporations. Consider instead "The Curse of Bigness" by Tim Wu. Listen to the recent podcast on antitrust in Capitalisn't (by U. of Chicago economics professor Luigi Zingales) and Elizabeth Warren's speech "America's Monopoly Problem".
October 7, 2025
Antitrust law assumes that competition inherently benefits society, yet it rarely questions how power concentration in data ownership and algorithms redefines what 'competition' truly means. Its enforcement often lags behind the rapid evolution of digital monopolies
By the time antitrust authorities intervene, digital monopolies have already reshaped consumer behavior and market infrastructure so profoundly that restoring 'competition' becomes a rhetorical rather than a practical goal.
يمكن المشكلة مش في غياب المنافسة، لكن في إننا بقينا جزء من نظام بيحوّل كل حاجة حتى حريتنا في الاختيار لمنتج قابل للقياس والبيع
By the time antitrust authorities intervene, digital monopolies have already reshaped consumer behavior and market infrastructure so profoundly that restoring 'competition' becomes a rhetorical rather than a practical goal.
يمكن المشكلة مش في غياب المنافسة، لكن في إننا بقينا جزء من نظام بيحوّل كل حاجة حتى حريتنا في الاختيار لمنتج قابل للقياس والبيع
November 26, 2020
Excellent little book. It's now almost 20 years old, and many things have changed since then, but it is a delight to read. Posner goes over the main areas of antitrust law and presents, for each of them, what he thinks is the best framework to analyze the problem, plus a brief revision of how the jurisprudence has judged in that area, either correctly or incorrectly. It's at a level that I think would fit either an economist or a lawyer, offering a glimpse of how the other side thinks. Highly recommended.
June 10, 2017
Relies critically on unrealistic and empirically invalid assumptions about how people act. Once those assumptions are removed and replaced with ideas actually supported by evidence, the whole book collapses into a pool of gibberish.
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September 23, 2010Antitrust Law: An Economic Perspective by Richard A. Posner (1978)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews