A New York Times–bestselling author’s “superbly reported” account of the dismantling of the world’s largest corporation (The Washington Post). Written by the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ghost Wars and Private Empire, The Deal of the Century chronicles the decade-long war for control of AT&T.   When the US Department of Justice brought an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T in 1974, the telecommunications giant held a monopoly on phone service throughout the country. Over the following decade, an army of lawyers, executives, politicians, and judges spent countless hours clashing over what amounted to the biggest corporate breakup in American history. From boardroom to courtroom, Steve Coll untangles the myriad threads of this complex and critical case and gives readers “an excellent behind-the-scenes look” at the human drama involved in the remaking of an entire industry (The Philadelphia Inquirer).   Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “rich, intricate and convincing,” The Deal of the Century is the definitive narrative of a momentous turning point in the way America does business.     Read more

Since it first appeared in 1978, this seminal work by one of the foremost American legal minds of our age has dramatically changed the way the courts view government's role in private affairs. Now reissued with a new introduction and foreword, this classic shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses. Robert Bork's view of antitrust law has had a profound impact on how the law has been both interpreted and applied. Lucid, highly readable, and full of rich social and political implications, The Antitrust Paradox illustrates how the purpose and integrity of law can be subverted by those who do not understand the reality law addresses or who seek to make it serve unintended political and social ends. Read more

Examples and Explanations for Antitrust Law, Third Editionis a relentlessly accessible introduction to a body of law that seems foreign and complex but does not at all have to be. By capturing the bigger picture without sacrificing any detail, introducing antitrust economics in a purely intuitive way appropriate for users at any level of economic sophistication, and extensively explaining the real-world context and institutions of antitrust practice, the book brings the law within reach for students of all backgrounds.New to the Third Edition: Incorporation of all significant judicial and legislative developments since 2011In-depth new coverage of the “two-sided” or “platform” market theory introduced in the Supreme Court’s seminal 2018 decision in Ohio v. American ExpressRevised coverage of conspiracy, monopolization, and merger law in light of key lower-court decisions, like United States v. AT&T, New York v. T-Mobile, Steves & Sons v. JELD-WEN, Viamedia v. Comcast, SC Innovations v. Uber Technologies, and the Alston NCAA litigationExpanded treatment of advanced antitrust economic theory in a substantially revised Appendix, including a full examination of bargaining theory and other developing models, and their performance before the courts.Professors and students will benefit from:Extensive attention to real-world contextHeavy emphasis on accessibility in language and explanation, but backed up with support for economic and legal study by more advanced readers (for example, the Appendix on advanced antitrust economics)A two-step introduction to antitrust economics accessible without any prior background in economics, built on a purely intuitive and non-quantitative introduction supplemented by more formal explanation for more advanced readers Read more

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Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, InspiringCompetition is responsible for much of the prosperity around us. Competitive markets deliver lower prices, better quality, abundance of choice, and increased innovation. But while competition benefits the consumers, it can prove challenging to producers and sellers, who need to constantly improve to stay in business. As a result, sellers may sometimes look for ways to dampen the competitive process. Our antitrust and competition laws are designed to address these risks and safeguard consumer welfare. The competition enforcers have the task of unravelling price-fixing cartels, challenging powerful companies that abuse their power, and monitoring proposed merger transactions that could undermine effective competition. In doing so, competition enforcers have to carefully consider the level of intervention and ensure they do not distort the natural dynamics of competition.Drawing on case studies from the US and the European Union, this Very Short Introduction explores the promise and limitations of competitive market dynamics. In examining the laws and the way they are enforced, Ariel Ezrachi considers the delicate relationship between a free market economy and government intervention, and the fascinating forces of competition that shape modern society.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. Read more

“David Kaye’s book is crucial to understanding the tactics, rhetoric and stakes in one of the most consequential free speech debates in human history.” —Cory DoctorowThe internet was designed to be a kind of free-speech paradise, but a lot of the material on it turned out to incite violence, spread untruth, and promote hate. Over the years, three American behemoths—Facebook, YouTube and Twitter—became the way most of the world experiences the internet, and therefore the conveyors of much of its disturbing material.What should be done about this enormous problem? Should the giant social media platforms police the content themselves, as is the norm in the U.S., or should governments and international organizations regulate the internet, as many are demanding in Europe? How do we keep from helping authoritarian regimes to censor all criticisms of themselves?David Kaye has been has been at the center of the discussions of these issues for years. He takes us behind the scenes, from Facebook’s “mini-legislative” meetings, to the European Commission’s closed-door negotiations, and introduces us to journalists, activists, and content moderators whose stories bring clarity and urgency to the topic of censorship.Speech Police is the most comprehensive and insightful treatment of the subject thus far, and reminds us of the importance of maintaining the internet’s original commitment to free speech, free of any company’s or government’s absolute control, while finding ways to modulate its worst aspects. Read more

A serious look at competition problems in tech markets and whether antitrust law can help address them.In recent years, the astronomical rise of tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft has been criticized as anticompetitive, and many have wondered if antitrust law can help protect workers and consumers. In Tech Monopoly, Herbert Hovenkamp explores competition problems in a wide range of high-tech firms—from those that sell purely digital products, such as video streaming, search, software, or email services, to others that sell more traditional “tactile” products, such as hardware, clothing, groceries, or rides. He offers a realistic look at the powers and limitations of antitrust law in tech markets with an assessment that is as comprehensive as it is accessible.After a general introduction to antitrust law, Tech Monopoly considers how competitive harm should be assessed in these markets, as well as some features that make these markets unique, including “two-sided” structures. Then Hovenkamp looks at the role of large digital platforms, including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, and considers whether their size alone is an antitrust problem or if the concern should be limited to market power. Finally, the author addresses the very difficult problem of remedies. Should we “break up” big tech, and if so, how? What kind of breakup of these firms would make users or others better off? And if breakups are not the only possible antitrust fix, are there more effective and less disruptive alternatives?Offering simple explanations of the complex economics of digital platform markets, Tech Monopoly is an important read for anyone who wishes to understand how antitrust law works and whether it can help defend competition in the formidable era of big tech. Read more

A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big MediaCorporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)—or both.In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism,” with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon’s use of digital rights management and bundling to radically change the economics of book publishing, to Google and Facebook’s siphoning away of ad revenues from news media, and the Big Three record labels’ use of inordinately long contracts to up their own margins at the cost of artists, chokepoints are everywhere.By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct “anti-competitive flywheels” designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices.In the book’s second half, Giblin and Doctorow then explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that’s being heisted away—before it’s too late. Read more

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The Kindle edition of a short audiobook I produced to be distributed through Amazon's ACX platform, explaining how that platform's sloppy rights verification and mandatory DRM screws over writers. Read more

Navigate the complexities of ID verification with confidence using The USA State I.D. Checking Guide 2024 - 2025! Designed to be your ultimate resource, this comprehensive guide offers an in-depth look at state-issued identification cards across all 50 U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia. Whether you're verifying IDs for professional security purposes, ensuring compliance with age-restricted product sales, or simply enhancing your personal knowledge, this book is your go-to tool.Features You’ll Love:Detailed State-by-State Breakdown: Clear, full-color visuals and descriptions of current ID designs, including driver’s licenses and non-driver identification cards.Real ID & Enhanced ID Markings: Learn how to quickly identify federally compliant cards and avoid confusion during verification.Security Features Explained: Discover the latest security elements, including holograms, UV features, and tactile markers to detect potential forgeries.Age Identification Made Easy: Simplified explanations and tips to calculate legal age thresholds at a glance.Professional Insight: Designed with input from industry experts in retail, hospitality, law enforcement, and more, ensuring it meets your everyday needs.Why Choose This Guide?With the increasing sophistication of counterfeit IDs, this book arms you with the knowledge to confidently verify identification and protect yourself or your business from fraud. Whether you're a bartender, security professional, retailer, or simply curious, The USA State I.D. Checking Guide 2024 - 2025 is an essential addition to your toolkit.Stay informed, stay compliant, and stay protected with this indispensable guide. Secure your copy today and never second-guess an ID again! Read more

The massive depression of the 1930's detonated the crisis between harsh reality and the vision of material abundance and economic security created by the American industrial order. Amid widespread poverty there was increasing concentration of economic power and loss of individual initiative. Professor Hawley traces the pattern of this conflict. He analyzes the National Recovery Administration, the sources and nature of the antitrust ideology, the rise of Keynesianism, the confusion within the Roosevelt Administration during the recession of 1937-38, and the government career of Thurman Arnold. Attention is given to the administrators of the New Deal and to the beliefs, pressures, and symbols that affected their policy decisions. How and why these ideas and pressures produced policies that were economically inconsistent yet politically workable is also explained.Originally published in 1966.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. Read more

A trenchant account of an unacknowledged driver of inequality and wage stagnation in America: the failure of antitrust law to prevent the consolidation of employers, who use their market power to suppress wages. Since the 1970s, Americans have seen inequality skyrocket--and job opportunities stagnate. There are many theories of why this happened, including the decline of organized labor, changes in technology, and the introduction of tax policies that favored the rich. A missing piece of the puzzle is the consolidation of employers, which has resulted in limited competition in labor markets. This should have been addressed by antitrust law, but was not. In How Antitrust Law Failed Workers, Eric Posner documents the failure of antitrust law to address labor market concentration. Only through reforming antitrust law can we shield workers from employers' overwhelming market power. Antitrust law is well-known for its role in combatting mergers, price-fixing arrangements, and other anticompetitive actions in product markets. By opposing these practices, antitrust law enhances competition among firms and keeps prices low for goods and services. Less well-known, antitrust law also applies to anticompetitive conduct by employers in labor markets, which pushes wages below the competitive rate. Yet there have been few labor market cases or enforcement actions, and almost no scholarly commentary on the role of antitrust law in labor markets. This book fills the gap. It explains why antitrust law has failed to address labor market concentration, and how it can be reformed so that it does a better job.Essential reading for anyone interested in fighting economic inequality, How Antitrust Failed Workers also offers a sharp primer on the true nature of the American economy—one that is increasingly uncompetitive and tilted against workers. Read more

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. Read more

Competition policy debates on digital platform markets are often premised on the idea that market fragmentation and the standard forces of competition and entry may provide a potential solution to excessive concentration and market power. In this work, Francesco Ducci provides readers with a different perspective based on the theoretical lens of natural monopoly. Ducci explores this framework through the development of three case studies on horizontal search, e-commerce marketplaces, and ride-hailing platforms, investigating the strength and limit of potential (and often heterogeneous) sources of natural monopoly at play in each industry. Building on these case studies, the book then derives from the application of the natural monopoly framework general policy implications for digital industries by identifying the respective institutional flaws and shortcomings of ex ante and ex post approaches to market power as one of the central challenges in digital platform markets. Read more

This book is an effort to consolidate several different perspectives on antitrust law. First, Professor Hylton presents a detailed description of the law as it has developed through numerous judicial opinions. Second, the author presents detailed economic critiques of the judicial opinions, drawing heavily on the literature in law and economics journals. Third, Professor Hylton integrates a jurisprudential perspective into the analysis that looks at antitrust as a vibrant field of common law. This last perspective leads the author to address issues of certainty, stability, and predictability in antitrust law, and to examine the pressures shaping its evolution. The combination of these three perspectives offers something new to every student of antitrust law. Specific topics covered include perfect competition versus monopoly, enforcement, cartels, section 1 doctrine, rule of reason, agreement, boycott, power, vertical restraints, tying and exclusive dealing, horizontal mergers, and conglomerates. Read more

Most people don't truly know what elite colleges sell, and they certainly don't know how elite colleges sell. This book covers a story the media has ignored for too long. It details how elite colleges illegally collude to monopolize the higher education industry and squeeze students, parents, and the public. Between 1994 and 2021, the University of Pennsylvania's endowment increased from $1.5 billion to $20.5 billion, growing by 1301%. Over that period, Cornell's endowment grew by 1014%, Brown's endowment grew by 1035%, and Duke's endowment grew by 1717%. Universally, elite universities have grown opulent beyond belief.Coinciding with that opulence is a growing scarcity of seats. As elite universities have hoarded more resources, they have jointly refused to teach materially more students. Between 1991 to 2021, the acceptance rate at the University of Pennsylvania plummeted from 47% of applicants to below 6%. Over that period, Cornell's acceptance rate went from over 30% to merely 9%. Acceptance rates similarly plummeted at Brown, Duke, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Georgetown, and virtually every other elite university.At elite universities in America, applications have erupted, enrollments have stagnated, and endowments have swollen. There is a word for an industry where a few collaborators make more collective profit by turning the product scarce.That word is cartel.As this book demonstrates, the college cartel of elite universities colludes both in plain sight and through hidden arrangements. The college cartel fixes prices, restricts the expansion of seats, and lobbies for unbelievable subsidies and tax breaks. Sitting in a market with strict barriers to entry, this cartel knows that the only invisible hand that reigns is its own invisible hand in middle-class pockets.“The College Cartel is a meticulously reported, deeply thoughtful, and vitally important book. Sahaj Sharda reveals one of the most destructive bottlenecks in our economic and political system: The powerful elite universities that stand between young people and their future. This book exposes a shockingly broken system while offering sharp and thoughtful proposals for fixing it. The problem is almost certainly going to get worse, making the message of this book more urgent by the day.”—Christopher Leonard, New York Times Bestselling Author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money. Read more

The stated purpose of antitrust laws is to protect competition and the public interest. But do such laws actually restrict the competitive process, harming consumers and serving the special interests of a few politically-connected competitors? Is antitrust law a necessary defense against the predatory business practices of wealthy, entrenched corporations that dominate a market? Or does antitrust law actually work to restrain and restrict the competitive process, injuring the public it is supposed to protect? This breakthrough study examines the classic cases in antitrust law and demonstrates a surprising gap between the stated aims of antitrust law and what it actually accomplishes in the real world. Instead of protecting competition, this book asserts, antitrust law actually protects certain politically-favored competitors. This is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand the limitations and problems of contemporary antitrust actions. Read more

Most readers are familiar with the concept of a monopoly. A monopolist is the only seller of a good or service for which there are not good substitutes. Economists and policy makers are concerned about monopolies because they lead to higher prices and lower output. The topic of this book is monopsony, the economic condition in which there is one buyer of a good or service. It is a common misunderstanding that if monopolists raise prices, then monopsonists must lower them. It is true that a monopsonist may force sellers to sell to them at lower prices, but this does not mean consumers are better off as a result. This book explains why monopsonists can be harmful and the way law has developed to respond to these harms. Read more

This innovative and popular casebook focuses on teaching antitrust through the best legal precedents available. It emphasizes current judicial opinions and includes dissents where relevant to help students grasp the issues. The notes reflect a balanced approach to the competing ideologies of left, right, and center—confronting their defects and presenting their strengths. Professors who are strongly committed to a particular ideology should find plenty of material to criticize or, alternatively, to illustrate their view.Specific updates for this edition include: Chapter Two: Update of economic graphs. Chapter Three: New interpretation of deference that should be shown to foreign government's domestic law in the context of extraterritorial application of American law and international comity. Chapter Four: Expanded discussion of Rule of Reason with major excerpt from O'Bannon v. NCAA decision; new discussion of Hub-and Spoke Conspiracies in the Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Apple; updates discussion of the summary judgment standard for antitrust claims with major excerpt from the decision in In re Text Messaging Antitrust Litigation. Chapter Five: Update on all vertical cases including the Supreme Court's decision of a two-sided platform in Ohio v. American Express. Chapter Six: Updates discussion of attempted monopolization with the addition of Philadelphia Taxi Association, Inc. Chapter Seven: Update on vertical mergers and merger remedies, including discussion of the D.C. Circuit’s decision in the AT&T/Time Warner merger. Read more