White, Lawrence J. --- "Antitrust Policy and Industrial Policy: A View from the U.S." [2010] ELECD 369; in Mateus, M. Abel; Moreira, Teresa (eds), "Competition Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Competition Law and Economics

Editor(s): Mateus, M. Abel; Moreira, Teresa

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848449992

Section: Chapter 21

Section Title: Antitrust Policy and Industrial Policy: A View from the U.S.

Author(s): White, Lawrence J.

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

21. Antitrust policy and industrial
policy: a view from the U.S.
Lawrence J. White1

I. INTRODUCTION

Antitrust policy and industrial policy are almost always in an uneasy con-
dition of coexistence with each other. This is especially true for Europe,
where a longer and stronger tradition of formal state intervention in the
economy and of a distrust of markets has crystallized into various forms
of `industrial policy', often expressed as the support and protection of
`national champions'.2 Antitrust ­ and especially antitrust with real
enforcement ­ has a more recent existence in Europe.
By contrast, in the United States, the tradition of antitrust extends back
for over a century, and the faith in markets is stronger. It was no accident
that the deregulation movement that reduced governmental regulation
that had impeded competition in transportation, telecommunications,
financial, and energy markets first began in the U.S. in the 1970s3 and only
subsequently spread to Europe. The U.S. has never embraced a formal
`industrial policy', and the only time that such an embrace was seriously
debated was in the late 1970s and the 1980s.4 This was a period when U.S.
economic growth had slowed appreciably from the relatively rapid growth
that had characterized the postwar 1946­1973 era, and there were wide-
spread fears that a primary reliance on markets would not be sufficient to
revive a more vigorous growth environment for the U.S. economy. It was
also a period when the Japanese model ­ embodying large private enter-


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