Document Type

Book

Publication Date

7-16-2026

Abstract

This book presents a modern economics approach to antitrust law. It expands upon and supplements traditional legal analysis of antitrust law and policy. It does so by analyzing antitrust legal standards and case law through the lenses of industrial organization economics and decision theory. The work is intended to be a comprehensive introductory guide for students, practitioners, and anyone else interested in learning the core of modern antitrust economics. Understanding the economics of antitrust and decision theory and applying that reasoning to specific cases and issues are critical steps for successfully studying and practicing antitrust law and policy. It treats the evolution of antitrust doctrine and policy as an interaction of the antitrust statutes, economic analysis, political economic ideology, and decision theory.

As a guide, the cases are organized by the anticompetitive mechanisms of collusive and exclusionary conduct rather than by the relevant section of the Sherman Act or Clayton Act. Part I sets out the basic analytic building blocks of industrial organization economics and decision theory. It includes a technical economic appendix and a section on the non-technical basics of Bayesian decision analysis. Part II examines collusive conduct and effects, where collusion encompasses coordination. It provides economic and legal analysis of oligopoly interaction, the agreement requirement, and the rule of reason analysis of those agreements. Part III focuses on the economic and legal analysis of exclusionary conduct. Part IV analyzes the law and competitive effects of mergers.

The economic analysis in this volume involves modern industrial organization and its economic models --- imperfect competition, strategic behavior by dominant firms and oligopolists, imperfect contracts, dynamic competitive interaction, and innovation -- not simply perfect competition versus monopoly. It takes into account the competitive effects on workers and other suppliers as well as consumers and other customers. The overall economic and decision theory approach is best characterized as “post-Chicago” rather than Chicago-school. However, it recognizes and reflects the contributions of Richard Posner and other Chicago-school economic and legal scholars. Like every scholarly endeavor, it stands on the shoulders of the earlier giants. The analysis is also applied to several Neo-Brandeisian concerns shared by post-Chicagoans.

The individual chapters are available for download separately on the book's website https://econantitrustguide.com/. A low-priced paperback book version is also available by following the linked on the website.

Comments

Creative Commons License: This edition of Modern Economic Analysis and Antitrust Law © 2026 by Steven C. Salop is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International, which allows noncommercial sharing and adaption of the work with attribution. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

Publication Citation

Steven C. Salop, Modern Economic Analysis and Antitrust Law: A Guide (2026) (ebook).

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