IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16818.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process

Author

Listed:
  • Aaron Edlin
  • Joseph Farrell

Abstract

Although antitrust courts sometimes stress the competitive process, they have not deeply explored what that process is. Inspired by the theory of the core, we explore the idea that the competitive process is the process of sellers and buyers forming improving coalitions. Much of antitrust can be seen as prohibiting firms' attempts to restrain improving trade between their rivals and customers. In this way, antitrust protects firms' and customers' freedom to trade to their mutual betterment.

Suggested Citation

  • Aaron Edlin & Joseph Farrell, 2011. "Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process," NBER Working Papers 16818, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16818
    Note: IO LE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16818.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roman Inderst & Greg Shaffer, 2010. "Market‐share contracts as facilitating practices," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(4), pages 709-729, December.
    2. Joseph Farrell & Janis Pappalardo & Howard Shelanski, 2010. "Economics at the FTC: Mergers, Dominant-Firm Conduct, and Consumer Behavior," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(4), pages 263-277, December.
    3. Sjostrom, William, 1989. "Collusion in Ocean Shipping: A Test of Monopoly and Empty Core Model s," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1160-1179, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael L. Katz, 2019. "Platform economics and antitrust enforcement: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 138-152, January.
    2. Christian G. Asmussen & Kirsten Foss & Nicolai J. Foss & Peter G. Klein, 2021. "Economizing and strategizing: How coalitions and transaction costs shape value creation and appropriation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 413-434, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edlin, Aaron & Jennings, Richard & Farrell, Joseph, 2011. "Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt5gx9n3tf, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Edlin, Aaron & Farrell, Joseph, 2011. "Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt6r51d3zg, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    3. Edlin, Aaron & Farrell, Joseph, 2011. "Freedom to Trade and the Competitive Process," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt0xg2h885, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    4. James Nolan & Zoe Laulederkind, 2022. "Plane to See? Empirical Analysis of the 1999–2006 Air Cargo Cartel," Advances in Airline Economics, in: The International Air Cargo Industry, volume 9, pages 241-262, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Dinko Dimitrov & Emiliya A. Lazarova & Shao-Chin Sung, 2016. "Inducing stability in hedonic games," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2016-09, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Kyle Hampton & Katerina Sherstyuk, 2012. "Demand shocks, capacity coordination, and industry performance: lessons from an economic laboratory," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 139-166, March.
    7. Lømo, Teis Lunde & Meland, Frode & Sandvik, Håvard Mork, 2020. "Do slotting allowances reduce product variety?," Working Papers in Economics 7/20, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    8. DAVID A. Butz, 1993. "Ocean Shipping Economics: Free Trade And Antitrust Implications," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 11(3), pages 69-80, July.
    9. Warren-Myers, Georgia & Bartak, Erika & Cradduck, Lucy, 2020. "Observing energy rating stars through the Australian Consumer Law lens: How volume home builders’ advertising can fail consumers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    10. Jay Pil Choi & Christodoulos Stefanadis, 2018. "Sequential innovation, naked exclusion, and upfront lump-sum payments," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 891-915, June.
    11. Elizabeth Bailey, 2015. "Behavioral Economics and U.S. Antitrust Policy," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(3), pages 355-366, November.
    12. Mike Fusillo, 2013. "The Stability of Market Shares in Liner Shipping," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(1), pages 85-106, February.
    13. Johannes Paha, 2017. "Wholesale Pricing with Incomplete Information about Private Label Products," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201736, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    14. Wojahn, Oliver W., 2012. "Why does the airline industry over-invest?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 1-8.
    15. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2002. "What Determines Cartel Success?," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2002-01, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    16. Philippe Choné & Laurent Linnemer, 2015. "Nonlinear pricing and exclusion: I. buyer opportunism," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 217-240, June.
    17. Lars S�rgard, 2014. "From Research on Mergers to Merger Policy," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 37-42, February.
    18. Schmitt, Nicolas & Weder, Rolf, 1998. "Sunk costs and cartel formation: Theory and application to the dyestuff industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 197-220, August.
    19. Marín Uribe, Pedro Luis, 2001. "Exclusive Contracts and Market Power: Evidence from Ocean Shipping," CEPR Discussion Papers 2828, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Zhijun Chen & Greg Shaffer, 2014. "Naked exclusion with minimum-share requirements," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 64-91, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • M2 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16818. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.