← Search

Journal of Political Economy Vol. 83 No. 4 1975

The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation

Richard A. Posner

Abstract

This paper presents a model and some highly tentative empirical estimates of the social costs of monopoly and monopoly-inducing regulation in the United States. Unlike the previous studies, it assumes that competition to obtain a monopoly results in the transformation of expected monopoly profits into social costs. A major conclusion is that public regulation is probably a larger source of social costs than private monopoly. The implications of the analysis for several public policy issues, such as appropriate policy toward mergers and price discrimination, are also discussed.

DOI
10.1086/260357
Volume
83
Issue
4
Pages
807-827
Language
en
Sources
crossref semanticscholar

Cite