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American Economic Review Vol. 94 No. 2 2004

Sunk Costs and Antitrust Barriers to Entry

Richard Schmalensee

MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA 02142

Abstract

US antitrust policy takes as its objective consumer welfare, not total economic welfare. With that objective, Joe Bain's definition of entry barriers is more useful than George Stigler's or definitions based on economic welfare. It follows that economies of scale that involve sunk costs may create antitrust barriers to entry. A simple model shows that sunk costs without scale economies may discourage entry without creating an antitrust entry barrier.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

DOI
10.1257/0002828041301975
Volume
94
Issue
2
Pages
471-475
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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