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"Antitrust's Least Glorious Hour": The Robinson-Patman Act

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  • Roger D. Blair
  • Christina DePasquale

Abstract

In The Antitrust Paradox, Robert Bork explored many of antitrust's misadventures. Specifically, Bork severely criticized the Robinson-Patman Act, which he characterized as "antitrust's least glorious hour." In this paper, we explore Bork's criticism of the Robinson-Patman Act along with those of other legal scholars and economists. We analyze the central prohibitions of the act and explore their competitive implications. We also show that the act's unfortunate prohibitions have been muted by the antitrust agencies' benign neglect and three recent Supreme Court decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger D. Blair & Christina DePasquale, 2014. ""Antitrust's Least Glorious Hour": The Robinson-Patman Act," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 201-215.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/675783
    DOI: 10.1086/675783
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Schwartz, Marius, 1990. "Third-Degree Price Discrimination and Output: Generalizing a Welfare Result," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1259-1262, December.
    2. Varian, Hal R, 1985. "Price Discrimination and Social Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 870-875, September.
    3. Ryan Luchs & Tansev Geylani & Anthony Dukes & Kannan Srinivasan, 2010. "The End of the Robinson-Patman Act? Evidence from Legal Case Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(12), pages 2123-2133, December.
    4. Katz, Michael L, 1987. "The Welfare Effects of Third-Degree Price Discrimination in," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 154-167, March.
    5. Elzinga, Kenneth G & Hogarty, Thomas F, 1978. "Utah Pie and the Consequences of Robinson-Patman," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 427-434, October.
    6. Coase, Ronald H, 1972. "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 143-149, April.
    7. Kenneth G. Elzinga & David E. Mills, 2014. "Antitrust Predation and The Antitrust Paradox," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 181-200.
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    Cited by:

    1. Joshua A. Gerlick & Stephan M. Liozu, 2020. "Ethical and legal considerations of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making in personalized pricing," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(2), pages 85-98, April.
    2. Ioannis N. Pinopoulos, 2022. "Input Price Discrimination, Two‐Part Tariffs and Bargaining," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 1058-1090, December.
    3. Yonezawa, Koichi & Gomez, Miguel I. & Richards, Timothy J., 2018. "The Robinson-Patman Act and Vertical Relationships in Food Retailing," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274204, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Timothy J. Richards, 2022. "Agribusiness and policy failures," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(1), pages 350-363, March.
    5. Aguirre, Iñaki & Yenipazarli, Arda, 2022. "A Rationale for the “Meeting Competition Defense” when Competitive Pressure Varies Across Markets," MPRA Paper 113746, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Koichi Yonezawa & Miguel I Gómez & Timothy J Richards, 2020. "The Robinson–Patman Act and Vertical Relationships," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 329-352, January.
    7. Renzhe Xu & Xingxuan Zhang & Peng Cui & Bo Li & Zheyan Shen & Jiazheng Xu, 2022. "Regulatory Instruments for Fair Personalized Pricing," Papers 2202.04245, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2022.

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