Journal Article The Literature of the Crisis Get access Myron W. Watkins Myron W. Watkins New York University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 47, Issue 3, May 1933, Pages 504–532, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883983 Published: 01 May 1933

Purpose of Sherman Act, — Diverse interests affected, 5. — I. Producer interests: indirectly protected by (a) raising standards of managerial responsibility, (b) affording various classes of producers the opportunity for prudential cooperation, 8. — Inadequacy of security afforded producers under Sherman Act, 14. — II. Interests of potential producers, 15; directly protected against (a) predatory methods of competition, 19, (b) trade boycotts, 20, (c) labor conspiracies to restrict sales and employer combinations to blacklist, 21. — Evidence of rigorous effectiveness of Sherman Act in safeguarding freedom of enterprise, 21. — III. Consumer interests: directly protected by penalization of concerted efforts to curtail supply or raise prices, (a) Trade agreements for these objects absolutely illegal, 24, but trade coöperation to control conditions of competition not hindered, 26. (b) Corporate mergers, originally held beyond the reach of the law, were later, so it appeared, absolutely condemned, 31. Present interpretation more liberal, 36. — Is there justification for a legal distinction between business mergers and associations? 38. — IV. Conclusion, that experience has vindicated the general policy of the Sherman Act, 39. — Contrast with British experience, 40. — Direction in which anti-trust laws need to be supplemented, 43.

I. Genesis of Federal Trade Commission law, 562. — II. Value of investigations made by Economic Division, 566. — Proceedings instituted by Legal Division mainly for protection of customers, rather than competitors, 568. — Regulative policies unsoundly drawn in three directions, 571. — Principal criticism is of failure of Commission to define limits of its corrective responsibility, 574. — Accomplishments of Commission as an advisory and consultative body, 578. — Significance of recent changes in rules of procedure, 579. — III. How inflexibility and lack of dispatch in administrative procedure may be overcome, 580. — Some suggestions toward substantive amendment of Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts, 584.