Antitrust Policy and Innovation: Taking Account of Performance Competition and Competitor Cooperation–Comment

摘要: Jorde and Teece [1991](hereafter JT) rest their analysis of antitrust policy on two main pillars: 1) the importance of the dynamic aspects of competition, and 2) the inadequacy of any welfare standard based entirely on the textbook model of competition. This is, I believe, a healthy antidote to the view that the only kind of competition worth promoting is that which narrows the wedge between today's price and today's marginal cost. The promotion of this" static compe-tition" has long been a central concern of American antitrust policy. That policy views with suspicion cooperative behavior among rivals because it can weaken price rivalry. But, JT point out, cooperation can also stimulate dynamic competition, the kind of competition in which cost levels are driven down or new, more valuable products are created. For example, consider a new cost-reducing technology which can be most effectively developed by a joint effort …