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Three essays in industrial organization and public policy
Abstract
This dissertation consists of three essays each addressing different aspects of collusion and antitrust policy. The first essay "Antitrust Enforcement in the New Era: Corporate Liberalism and the Case of Trade Associations" examines the antitrust enforcement posture of the administrations of Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover in the period between 1921 and 1932. The hypothesis is that a change in antitrust enforcement posture, with respect to trade association activities, was partially responsible for the dramatic growth of trade associations during this time period. The essay concludes that a "lax enforcement" posture was most in evidence during the Coolidge Administration. The second essay "Cooperation v. Rivalry and Collusion-Enhancing Market Structures" uses the FTC's line of business data set to extend the work of Kwoka and Ravenscraft (1986) by postulating a model of interfirm behavior using conjectural variation analysis. The hypothesis states that industries with the same distribution of market shares among the leading firms may experience differing degrees of collusion based on unique market characteristics. Results obtained showed that the largest firms in the "collusive" group acted in a more rivalrous manner, while the second-largest firms in that group acted in a more cooperative manner, as their respective market shares increased. The third essay "The Relevance of Section 8 of the Clayton Act in Light of Centralized Private Sector Planning" uses Munkirs's (1985) Centralized Private Sector Planning (CPSP) thesis to examine the relevance of the Clayton Act's prohibition against direct board of director interlocks. The CPSP thesis states that megacorporations in the U.S. seek to coordinate their actions to control the economy. One tool facilitating coordination among and between CPSP corporations is the interlocking directorate. Extensive corporate interlocking, on the scale dictated by CPSP, can enhance corporate power and have detrimental consequences for other groups. The hypothesis and conclusion of this essay is that section 8 of the Clayton Act, as written and interpreted, is fundamentally inconsistent with the economic realities of corporate power in a CPSP framework.
Subject Area
Economics|Public administration
Recommended Citation
Manns, Leslie D, "Three essays in industrial organization and public policy" (1993). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9322804.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9322804